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COEfl^IGHT DEPOSm 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



BY 

SOPHIE JEWETT 



Published for the Sophie Jewett Memorial Ambulance 

One of "The American Poets* Ambulances 

in Italy" 



^<^' 



COPYRIGHT, 1917 
BY WELI.KSI.EY COIvLEGE 



SEP 29 1917 



DC!,A476323 



FOREWORD 

To Miss Jewett's love of Italy and all things 
Italian many of her poems bear witness, as do 
the sketches collected in this volume. Miss 
Katharine Lee Bates, in a memorial sketch in the 
Boston Transcript, says: "Italian art and lit- 
erature were especially congenial to Miss Jewett, 
and she spent many months, at one time or an- 
other, in journeying among the hill towns of 
Umbria and the small, out-of-the-way cities of 
Northern Italy. Her sympathy with the Latin 
races, in whom, she says, one finds commonly 
'the expectant temperament that brings a touch 
of idealism to all but the abjectest poverty,' is 
shown very sweetly in a sketch entitled *The 
Land of Lady Poverty' (in the Outlook, August 
26, 1905). Yet she went on these pilgrimages 
only when in such sore need of rest that she 
shrank from poetic enterprises, lest her weari- 
ness should do her theme dishonor, and wrote 
what she had strength to write in her firm and 
sensitive prose, seen at its best in *The Fate of 
Francesco' (in Scribner's, July, 1905), and in 
'The Lover of Trees in Italy' (in Scribner's, 
June, 1903). The element of accident, too, en- 
tered in. On her last leave of absence she had 
undertaken to make a translation of De Amicis's 
'Cuore,' and her observations of Italian children, 



8 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

for the purposes of her prefatory sketch, led on 
to 'Bettina', a true and touching story of a Httle 
ItaHan girl (in The Churchman, November 22, 
1902) and possibly had some influence in decid- 
ing her to write a child's life of St. Francis. 
This ran as a serial in The Churchman (Janu- 
ary to April, 1903) under the title of 'God's 
Troubadour.' Snatches from her Italian letters 
are significant in more ways than one: 

'But the sunset is just as beautiful as if there 
were no crimes in the world. * * Yesterday 
was a glory, and the sheep and shepherds arrived 

* * The lambs look like Horace, and Lu- 
cretius, and Gray, and 'The Intimations of Im- 
mortality,' only I can't understand how any of 
the poets could take them seriously. They look 
to me like a comical blunder * * j want you 
to come and play with these ridiculous little 
lambs and see how pretty the flocks and the 
sleeping shepherds look in the moonlight. * * 
The grass is full of little pink-tipped daisies, and 
the woods of rosy cyclamen. It is a beautiful 
world. * * With the sky so blue behind thg 
cypresses, it is easy to be thankful for beauty, 
and for 'sweet love remembered.' * * To- 
night we reached Assisi, with a red sunset, and a 
full moon, and the long blue valley filled with 
Italian summer haze. I can't bear any more 
beauty. I want to come home and work hard.' 



TABIvK OF CONTENTS 



The Ivand of I^ady Poverty ... 15 

The Fate of Francesco .... 28 

Bettina 51 

The Boys of Italy: Introduction to "Cuore" 69 

The IvOver of Trees in Italy ... 85 

The Altarpiece 95 

The Eighth of December . . . .103 



In Memoriam: Sophie Jewett 

By still lake shore, or oak wood sere, 

One time there walked a lady here 

In garments green, whose ripples still 

Blend with the grass of field and hill. 

Through the dim blue of autumn haze. 

Through quickening spring's enchanted days, 

Erect, serene, she came and went 

On her high task of beauty bent. 

For us who knew, nor can forget. 

The echoes of her laughter yet 

Make sudden music in the halls. 

For aye these academic walls 

Give back that cadenced voice that reads 

Poetic tale of knightly deeds. 

Her head thrown back in swift-born pride 

In one who for his faith had died ; 

A sudden splendor in her eyes 

At finding act of sacrifice. 

Earth had her merriment and tears. 
Her fine resolve, her quick-stung fears 
Of crawling selfishness and sin. 
Her quicker faith that good shall win. 
This brown world bringing joy and pain 
In days of gold, in lashing rain. 
Through all its myriad-minded strife 
She loved with warmth of human life, 
Revelled in every line and hue 
Of beauty sea and forest knew. 



II 



12 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

Sharing her sorrow and her mirth, 
We knew her part of blessed earth, 
Yet knew she Hved, eternally. 
The soul's hid life one may not see. 
Withdrawn, apart, by night and day, 
Her footsteps climbed the holy way, 
Up heavenly hills of longing, where 
The spirit takes the road of prayer. 

Nor dare we doubt that she, who then 

Trod the far world beyond our ken. 

Walks now, unseen, this earth of ours. 

Aware, as once, of sun-touched flowers, 

And hylas' plaintive cries, that bring 

The pain and peace of earliest spring; 

Of June's sweet fragrances, and all 

The subtle loveliness of fall. 

In gentle rain, in brightening air, 

Lo, she is here, and everywhere ! 

Nearer than sight, or whispered word. 

Yet ours, though untouched, unheard. 

As eager as of old to share 

The beauty that one may not bear, 

So fine its poignancy of joy; 

Still busy in her old employ 

Of poetry, verse finely wrought 

That sets to music noble thought. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



13 



One had to seek her then, but see ! 
Forever waits she silently 
Where bitter need or trouble calls. 
Alway I hear her light foot-falls 
In crowded streets, where hunger waits 
At its unnumbered, swarming gates ; 
And step by step with human ill 
Her healing footsteps follow still. 
Whenever sudden anguish cries 
I see the sweetness of her eyes, 
Where quivering shades of sorrow blend 
With vision of the perfect end. 

Margaret Sherwood 



THE LAND OF LADY POVERTY 

In the midsummer days it was easy to fall in 
love with her. Did she not masquerade as Lady 
Beauty and as Lady Pleasure? Her children 
came singing out of the Lombard fields at eve- 
ning, carrying bundles of hay on their dark 
heads. They stripped the mulberry leaves in the 
vineyards, or set the first sickles into tall, 
feathery hemp; they dangled at the window of 
our railway carriage, offering us great purple 
figs bursting with sweetness. 

Though at moments greed and squalor might 
beset us, for the most part our dream held the 
spell of beauty that surrounds the simplest and 
most universal of human labors. Through it 
we saw brown peasants who bent among wheat 
and poppies, and in purple fields of "Spanish 
grass;" who trudged behind white oxen, follow- 
ing antique plows into a Virgilian twilight. To 
that dream of the beauty of simple toil belongs 
imperishably a girl drawing water at a Tuscan 
fountain. Some hint of ancient grace clung to 
the profile outlined against the stone, even to the 
straw-covered Chianti flask in her hand and to 
the gleaming copper jar on the fountain ledge 
beside her. 

To the dream belonged also dark boatmen of 

15 



l6 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

the Adriatic, hoisting sails of yellow and brown 
and scarlet to set forth on an unearthly sea that 
lay in long level bars of vivid color, gold and 
purple, green and blue. All day the bright wings 
floated over the bright water, veering and tack- 
ing to a stiff land breeze — common fishing-boats 
in search of their scant and perilous harvest; but 
that thought could not penetrate our dream. 

The chaffer of an Umbrian market-place on 
the day of a country fair awakened us, yet the 
reality was gay enough and not unpicturesque, 
even though a passion for cheap finery often 
marred the charm of booths and of buyers. 
Fashion had not affected the vine-covered bask- 
ets of the fruit-vendors nor the shining ranks of 
majolica set out on the pavement in the sun ; and 
the cattle fair almost brought back the illusion. 
There was enduring fascination in the great 
oxen, white, with a faint tint of pink. Stand- 
ing sleek and garlanded in a noisy, commonplace 
crowd of barterers and onlookers, they seemed 
incongruously beautiful, as if strayed from some 
sacrificial procession. 

At morning we looked down upon a broad 
piazza d'armi so crowded with the huge creatures 
that it seemed like a white sea; and in the light 
of afternoon we watched them trailing home- 
ward in long lines, visible on loop after loop of 
the climbing roads, like the train of the Magi 
in a fifteenth-century painting. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



17 



Wherever labor led to social gathering even 
the poorest seemed happy. The daily drawing 
of water at the village fountain was merrier 
than afternoon tea, and as noisy. Veriest hags, 
sibylline in their wrinkled blackness, laughed and 
chattered, exchanging incomprehensible gossip 
that piqued one's curiosity. We grew to love 
the daily greetings that we watched and that we 
received. Millet might have painted the two 
burden-bearing women lingering to chat on the 
sharp curve of an Assisan road; and the smile 
of another, returning homeward with her empty 
basket, rewarded us for a long walk across the 
sun-steeped plain. Moreover, there was no day 
that did not add to our friendships among chil- 
dren, and, it must be confessed, among animals. 
We noticed that care and caresses seemed to be 
divided evenly between the children and the 
beasts. One woman's pride in an obstreperous 
donkey was fairly maternal, and a snowy-haired 
grandmother tended impartially her little grand- 
son and a ubiquitous lamb. 

Away from the noise and merriment of 
market-place and fountain, the lives of the peo- 
ple seemed strangely barren and lonely. In the 
mountain districts the same lament sounded 
everywhere. The hostesses of forlorn little inns 
chanted it; the coachmen as they walked beside 
our carriage on the steep roads ; even the pretty 
girl who conducted us through the chapel and 



1 8 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

garden of an abandoned monastery: "There is 
no work, Signore; there are no factories ; all the 
young people are gone to France to spin silk." 
And, in truth, through the poorest regions, we 
saw more old folk and children than youths and 
maidens. All day long the single pig, whose fat 
sides shine with a dark luster like that of pewter, 
is watched by an old crone, or, it may be, by a 
tiny girl who reminds one of Mathilde Serao's 
Canituccia guarding her beloved Ciccotto. Aged 
men and women, too, trim the vineyards,' dig in 
the fields, or stagger down the mountain paths 
bent double under heavy fagots. 

The loneliness of certain individuals of a race 
so gregarious was peculiarly impressive. To the 
woman with her pig, to shepherd or goatherd, 
brute companionship may have atoned for lack 
of human kind; and yet an unfailing readiness 
to talk suggested wistful desire for reciprocal 
speech. Even the strange, savage creature — girl 
or woman, one could not tell — who pastured 
goats in the shadow of a ruined Tuscan fortress, 
was pathetic in her eagerness for conversation. 
She showed none of the intelligent curiosity that 
often met us. I do not remember that she asked 
a question ; but she chattered like a child, as she 
sewed a bright piece of cotton upon a faded gar- 
ment already patched with half a dozen different 
colors. She had not rested after midnight, for 
fear of oversleeping; she had risen at four 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 19 

o'clock to go to the mountain for fagots; the 
distance was nine miles, and she had brought 
back her load before midday. "Was the road 
hard?" "Yes, very hard, and the wood is 
heavy." There was a kind of dull pride in her 
voice. The goats browsed between the fallen 
stones of the mediaeval tower; in a cypress- 
shaded convent garden on the slope below, an 
old monk watered his flowers; far beneath, on 
the plain. Lake Trasimene shone through the 
August haze, light blue, as Fra Angelico saw it, 
and Signorelli. We left the girl standing among 
her goats, sharply outlined against the sky — a 
thing not ancient nor mediaeval nor modern, only 
a dateless symbol of lonely human toil. 

One finds commonly among Latin races the 
expectant temperament that brings a touch of 
idealism to all but the abjectest poverty. At the 
worst, there is a vague belief in luck, or in the 
intervention of the saints. This expectation, pale 
or vivid, of some sudden bettering of things ap- 
peared to thrive chiefly upon the possibilities 
offered by the government lottery, by religion, by 
emigration, and by socialism. Though we heard 
of marked exceptions, we sometimes fancied that 
in the remoter districts socialismo was still, for 
the most part, the mere word of the conjuror, 
connoting dim images of things to be desired, or 
of things to be feared. Social discontent there 
was, and criticism of landowners and of the 



eo ITALIAN SKETCHES 

government, yet the ideas of even the critics 
seemed often fixedly feudal. 

The word America was more concretely yet 
scarcely more clearly suggestive. Everywhere 
in the mountains we encountered a terrified 
curiosity as to what the American voyage might 
be like, except, perhaps, among the peasants 
about Urbino, in whose vocabulary francese 
seemed to be synonymous with foreigner, and 
La Francia the outpost of the world. 

One soon becomes accustomed to hearing the 
government lottery defended upon grounds of 
expediency or of necessity; but to hear a grave 
commendatore champion it as a source of inspira- 
tion and uplifting to the people struck with ironic 
sound on Anglo-Saxon ears. "If you take away 
the lottery, you take away that which idealizes 
the lives of the very poor. It gives hope and 
zest to the most miserable creature on the street 
to think that some day he may play the lucky 
number and never go hungry any more." And 
this opinion was maintained along with the ad- 
mission that in northern Italy, where there is 
the greatest prosperity, the lottery has least hold 
upon the populace. 

A man may find no place in the ranks of paid 
labor ; fortune may play him false in his dream of 
U America or of il lotto; but the church is liter- 
ally an open refuge, day by day, to the most 
wretched. One enters cathedral or pieve to 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



21 



look at a fresco or mosaic, to witness a great 
ceremonial, to listen to music, or, it may be, to 
say one's prayers, but one lingers to watch the 
daily pathos of simple lives. After the first 
morning, when you have made acquaintance with 
the sacristan and the parish priest, nobody mo- 
lests you except in the way of friendly conver- 
sation. You may sit in the choir stalls and copy 
a bit of fresco, or, if the face you wish to paint 
happen to be in the vestry, and out of reach on a 
dark stretch of wall, some one will bring the 
steps that are used for lighting the high altar, 
and you may mount thereon and work for hours. 
Various ecclesiastics gather about you as they 
go and come from mass, and talk with you while 
they put off their gorgeous vestments. They do 
not resent your intrusion, but, on the contrary, 
they are pleased that you have sought out the 
quaint and faded masterpiece of their own local 
painter, though they evidently marvel at your 
peculiar taste in art. Is there not, in a chapel of 
the nave, a Madonna by Baroccio, ''ma bellis- 
sima!" and a Gesu Bambino in the palazzo ducale 
that "actually sleeps, propria dorme, Signora?" 

It is better to be the idle comrade of the copy- 
ist, so to watch unhindered the life that comes 
and goes under the leathern curtain of the great 
door. A familiar, intimate life is this that en- 
ters. Even the children are at home, and play 
about unreproved and unawed. I watched one 



Q2 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

day, in an almost empty cathedral, at the hour 
of mass, a stray baby, who came pattering up the 
nave and planted himself exactly in the path of 
the priestly procession. A tall deacon lifted him 
gently from under the feet of the officiating 
priest, and during the celebration the little fellow 
climbed upon the chancel rail, until weariness 
overcame his interest, and he serenely went to 
sleep upon the highest step. He still slept there 
when the function ended and the vast nave was 
empty, save for one cripple kneeling at his pray- 
ers. 

When the leather curtain rose again, it ad- 
mitted two women, one a robust, bright-faced 
popolana, the other a shriveled, tiny old creature 
with the vague eyes and smile of the feeble- 
minded. They went from altar to altar, and the 
younger woman made the unfortunate kneel as 
if she were a little child, and I heard the murmur 
of sacred words across an inarticulate babble, 
pitifully unchildlike. When the prayers were 
ended, the two came up to me, and the younger 
woman explained gently, "She has no mind, 
Signora, she cannot talk ; but she is so good, and 
so happy, poverina!" and she kissed and caressed 
the vacant, smiling face. A cripple, an imbecile, 
a sleeping baby — on these pecorelli the great 
Christ above the altar looked down sorrowfully. 

In the country of St. Francis a persistent 
tradition of sacredness clings about the mendi- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 23 

cant. In certain cities one may substitute food 
tickets, huoni, for coppers, and otherwise second 
public and private effort to combat pauperism, 
but in remote places one cannot sleep o' nights 
without the good-will of the beggars. However 
shamefacedly, one comes to adopt a mediaeval 
standard, quieting one's scruples by observing 
that begging is not always the only trade of a 
given individual. Children rattle tambourines or 
turn handsprings by way of earning their soldi, 
and old women drop their knitting to stretch out 
hands misshapen with long toil that has led only 
to beggary at the end. Maria della Rocca, said 
to have one hundred years, and looking her age, 
walks in the early morning from the mountain, 
five miles away, carrying on her erect old head 
a wide basket filled with mushrooms. After 
making her bargain in the kitchen, she lingers 
before the house for whatever coppers may fall 
from the windows. Now Maria's tongue is like 
that of the prophet Balaam, eloquent for bless- 
ing or cursing, and, if you please her, she will 
fall upon her stiff knees and call down upon your 
unworthy head the good offices of half a hundred 
saints. If you offend her — but only the intrepid 
would dare to test those powers of vituperation. 
There is also Fra Felice, trudging cheerily 
through the chestnut woods, or, on a long day's 
expedition, riding the sole horse of the brother- 
hood. May not that kindly face reflect some 



24 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



faint halo from the spirit of the Poverello? At 
any rate, he brings erhe for your garden, and his 
blessing is in the name of St. Francis. At the 
day's end you are glad to see him come home 
with well-filled bag, and you watch the white 
road dreamily as he fades into the dimness of 
the twilight and of the thirteenth century. 

Our summer wanderings never led us "giu 
per lo mondo senza fine amaro" of the squalidest 
city streets and the deadliest industries, yet even 
in Umbria and the marches, the land of her old- 
time worship, My Lady Poverty began to appear 
to us haggard and tattered and unlovely. Her 
servants, the toilers as well as the beggars, often 
went ragged and hungry; for the line between 
self-support and beggary was impossible to draw, 
and earning a living meant simply not starving. 
Being sufficiently fed and clad was construed as 
possessing wealth ; and never have I seen more 
pitiful, patient, unrewarded toil than among this 
race so constantly misrepresented as lazy. The 
hollow-eyed, filthy women and children outside 
the gates of Gubbio were not beggars, but simply 
poveri. In one little mountain city, proud of 
electric light and railroad, but without water 
and without industry, we used to wonder how 
the people lived who did not beg, and, indeed, 
how the beggars found patrons, where all seemed 
so poor. A ducal palace, beautiful with the 
charm of the early Renaissance, came to be scant 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 2$ 

consolation for the wretchedness that haunted 
us through every street. Some day, perhaps, 
water will be brought from the mountains, and 
cleanliness and prosperous labor may come with 
it, but in the meantime there seems no future 
for the young except emigration — and for the 
old? On a neighboring hilltop stands a low, 
white monastic house which we visited one day, 
drawn thither by the picturesqueness of its cy- 
press avenues and its open belfry. "It has been 
made a recovero dei poveri/' our coachman ex- 
plained, "an almshouse." A white-headed man 
was weeding the pavement between the cypresses, 
but there came no answer to the coachman's 
vigorous ring. "Gente che dormono" he ex- 
claimed as he pulled at the dangling rope a sec- 
ond time — "people who sleep." Stumbling feet 
sounded through the tiled corridor, trembling 
hands undid the latch, and a man, feeble rather 
than old, cordially bade us enter. Behind him 
tottered two or three older inmates, their faces 
lighted by a faint glow of pleasure or curiosity 
at having something happen. The corridor led to 
a little courtyard with a covered well. Here an 
ancient woman smiled benignly upon us as we 
passed through to the garden, where, as the 
artist had foreseen, was the best place from 
which to sketch the belfry. The door-keeper be- 
came our patron and attendant. He planted the 
sketching-stool securely on the steep slope of the 



26 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

garden, he brought water for the brushes, he 
responded without manifest surprise to our 
praise of the yellowing stuccoed wall and of the 
green-stained bell. When work began, he in- 
sisted upon standing on the awkward slope to 
hold an umbrella over the painter. "You need 
not do that," she said ; "it is difficult, and the um- 
brella will stay of itself, so." Neither of the 
strangers will forget the wistful voice that 
answered : "Please let me hold it, Signora ; non 
ho niente da fare — I have nothing to do." 

As we sat through the blue summer afternoon, 
the painter working swiftly, the idler watching 
shadow and sun upon a hundred hills, il povero 
told us of his life, and how illness and misfor- 
tune had brought him to this irksome quietude. 
He had fought in his youth, he had worked in 
the coast cities and on the islands, he had led 
even that most social of lives, a public cabman's. 
He was intelligent and not old, only ill, and 
stranded on this remote hilltop with a pitiful 
handful of the decrepit and feeble-minded. A 
foolish, monotonous song went droning up and 
down behind the cypresses. "It is the idiot," 
our friend explained. "He waters the flowers, 
poveretto." The old woman clattered to the 
courtyard door and smiled upon us with vacant 
amiability, and once or twice a voice came from 
the unseen road below. For the rest it was si- 
lence, save for the twitter of a myriad brown 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 2J 

birds in the cypress-trees. 

"So this is the end of it," I thought, "the best 
that Lady Poverty can give to her servitors. Not 
undesirable gifts in themselves— beauty and quiet 
and leisure. Certain courtiers of Lady Riches- 
might accept them gladly enough; but a pic- 
turesque belfry and a cypress avenue must be 
small comfort when one pines for the clamor of 
an Italian city square." 

To break the spell of my own sentimental 
pathos, I called attention to the shadow that 
made the umbrella superfluous, and I presented 
to our povero day before yesterday's "Tribuna." 
He accepted it eagerly, and with quick courtesy 
withdrew to the further side of the garden, se- 
lected a spot still sunny, and, lying full length, 
read quietly until he heard us preparing to de- 
part. 

As we neared the city gate on our return, the 
late light struck along a row of cropped cy- 
presses that inclose the burial-place of the poor, 
and, suddenly, the gray wall, the chapel, and all 
the cloud-veiled sky were touched with a con-^ 
soling glory of rose and amethyst. "Gente che 
dormono" we quoted— "folk who sleep." 



THE FATE OF FRANCESCO 



"It is the will of the Madonna!" groaned 
Francesco, sitting bent and melancholy on the 
box of No. 45. Masaccio, with his head in a 
bag, munched his breakfast and did not listen. 
It was literally impossible for him to see be- 
yond his present need. The midsummer morn- 
ing was hot, and, at nine o'clock, the shadow 
of the wall was growing narrow. Masaccio's 
bag and ears and neck were already in the sun, 
yet it would not do to abandon the post which 
commanded the entrance to the one inn of the 
town, for Francesco knew that the two for- 
eign ladies whom he had unsuccessfully pur- 
sued all the afternoon of the day before had 
not yet come out at the door. In the hope of 
their appearance he had neglected to meet the 
nine o'clock train. 

Masaccio finished his breakfast; the nine 
o'clock train whistled far away, and Francesco 
drooped on his box. Things were going from 
bad to worse. In the spring, a month of good 
fortune had inspired him with the idea of buy- 
ing Masaccio from the padrone. As soon as he 
should be himself padrone, he had thought 
gayly, he and Masaccio could earn a good liv- 

28 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 29* 

ing, and before Christmas — he would marry 
Concetta in the church of San Bartolommeo. 
This morning he wondered how he had 
dreamed that dream. Day after day it had 
faded before him, and only last Sunday he had 
sworn to Concetta that unless he saved twenty 
lire before the week ended he would give up 
the struggle and go to America. He could sell 
his interest with the padrone to Antonio of No. 
107 for the price of a third-class ticket to 
"Buonaria." To-day was Friday, and the two 
lire that Francesco now rattled in his pocket 
made the sum of his week's earnings. Even 
through his despondency, Francesco smiled in 
the sunshine, remembering how little Concetta 
had looked at him with steady eyes that Sun- 
day afternoon under the olive trees in the farm 
garden, declaring almost fiercely: "If you go, 
Checco mio, I shall go also." Concetta could 
never go, he thought, because of the old grand- 
mother, yet the memory of her words com- 
forted him. 

Francesco started. He was upright in a sec- 
ond, flourishing his whip. ''Vuole Madama" 
he cried, for there, close beside him, was the 
Inglese in the gray gown." She had come out 
from the door and crossed the piassa while he 
was dreaming of Concetta. 

A bargain for the drive to Montecorbo was 
quickly concluded, and, as the carriages from 



30 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



the station came rattling up, all empty, the 
Inglese, half deafened by the cries of "Vuole 
Madamaf Vuole Madamaf" gladly seated her- 
self in No. 45, which drove proudly to the inn 
door to receive the fair lady in blue. 

As they clattered along the narrov^ streets 
Francesco gave thanks to the Madonna, v^ho 
had blessed him w^ith luck at last. Before his 
eyes danced the eighteen lire of his bargain, 
in a radiant if vague halo of a good mancia, for 
these were kindly strangers, it appeared. 
Deeper than this simple joy of receiving lay 
the delight of a little secret that promised two 
or three lire more if the Madonna continued 
favorable. His present passengers were, he 
saw, old travellers, yet they had forgotten to 
stipulate that the drive should include San 
Fortunato, which lies beyond the farther gate 
of Montecorbo. Francesco was too sage to 
speak of it, but waited his time, and meanwhile 
performed the duties of coachman and guide in 
his most engaging manner. 

Masaccio sped gayly along the level road be- 
yond the gate of San Pietro, that looks toward 
Montecorbo. Where the carriage crossed a 
stream, a girl was kneeling, washing linen. She 
wore a faded blue gown and green stays 
trimmed with magenta, and the kerchief that 
covered her bright curls was the color of a 
half-ripe lemon. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 31 

''Buon giorno, Concetta!" called Francesco. 

The girl looked up, and the smile that flashed 
from the full lips to the great, grave eyes, was 
something for even a stranger to remember. 

'^Buon giorno, Chdcco; huon viaggio/* she 
said. 

" 'A smile that might make a man happy in 
the fire,' " quoted the blonde lady softly. Fran- 
cesco did not know his Dante, but he under- 
stood, and he laughed aloud in pure delight. 

"We are betrothed," he said simply. "The 
signora sees that she is beautiful." 

As they left the plain and cHmbed the steep 
mountain road where a good coachman walks 
to spare his horse, Francesco, with his hand on 
the carriage beside the blonde lady, confided to 
these strangers the whole story of his hopes 
and his disappointments, and of the love be- 
tween him and little Concetta. 

Yet he did not forget to give his patrons 
"good service," and he easily won his coveted 
three Hre for San Fortunato. As they returned 
toward the city, when the blue, si^mmer dis- 
tance of the far-reaching valley was like that 
in Perugino's "Adoration" left behind them in 
the church on the hill-top, it was, in fact, the 
astute Francesco who arranged a delightful 
programme for the following morning. 

Francesco's face next day as he said goodby 
to his signore forestiere and pocketed his man- 



32 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



cia, was so bright that Padre Innocenti, arriv- 
ing by the train from Rome, singled him out 
for the drive to the Convent of San Lorenzo. 
This seemed to Francesco the continued favor 
of the Madonna, but to Masaccio it appeared 
to be unexplained and arduous destiny. 

When the padre had been set down at the 
convent gate it was past three o'clock. Masac- 
cio was tired almost to the point of tears or 
speech. The level road stretched white and 
unshaded and no wind stirred. Vine leaves 
hung limp above pale clusters of half-ripened 
grapes. The brave, tasselled heads of the gran 
turco drooped ingloriously and the broad, red 
poppies shrivelled. Here and there in the acacia 
hedges a bee hummed over some sweet, be- 
lated blossom, and on every side cicalas sang 
lustily for joy of the midsummer heat. 

Francesco sang even more lustily, as his left 
hand fingered the leathern bag in his trousers' 
pocket that contained in coin and paper thirty- 
two Hre. He, like Masaccio, was tired, but the 
restorative touch of the leather bag set cheeks 
and eyes a-flame, and he flicked his whip at his 
poor comrade, who, unconscious of their bet- 
tered fortune, crawled ruefully along the blaz- 
ing road. 

Now Francesco was a good master and he 
knew that he ought to let Masaccio take the 
shortest road toward food and shelter; and 



ITALIAN SKETCHES ^^ 

yet, if he turned here, beyond the villa, it would 
be but scant two miles to the podere where 
Concetta lived with her grandmother and Uncle 
Pietro in the little garden-house. 

Concetta must at once be told of the thirty- 
two lire ; Francesco could wait no longer, and 
he turned the aggrieved but submissive Masac- 
cio into the road beyond the villa. "Take your 
own time, lazy-legs," he said condescendingly, 
as he curled himself upon the seat under the 
white umbrella, with his hand on his money- 
bag and his thoughts on Concetta's great eyes. 

Masaccio staggered over the vacant road; 
there was not a creature in sight; man and 
beast and even bird were hidden away from the 
deadly sun. Masaccio was too weary to won- 
der what his master might mean; he only re- 
gretted dimly the quiet days when he had stood 
in the little square of San Donnino with his 
head in his dinner-bag. 

Masaccio lifted his ears and sniffed. A light 
sound ran along the acacia hedges ; the close- 
set plumes of the gran turco waved softly, 
rank after rank. Francesco started; he drew 
a long breath and the air felt cool. '7/ tempor- 
aler he muttered. From somewhere, unan- 
nounced, suddenly, clouds gathered. Dust rose 
and whirled on the white road. The breeze 
grew to great gusts that tore the hedges and 



34 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



vine-garlands and bent the proud gran turco 
to the earth. Francesco drew up the reins and 
urged on his tired horse ; then he stood up and 
looked off over the valley. Beyond the city, 
far away, where the plain narrowed in the 
grasp of the southern mountains, rose a dense 
black cloud. It seemed to reach from plain to 
sky, clean-cut and straight as a column, and it 
moved up the valley, swift and terrible. 

Francesco shivered. "Su, via! Get along!" 
he cried to Masaccio. "It will be a hurricane !" 
Night seemed to fall suddenly. Forked light- 
ning played across the black cloud-column, and 
thunder crashed among the hills. 

The white road led almost directly toward 
the advancing terrpr, yet there would be no 
hope in turning back. The nearest shelter was 
Pietro's garden-house and the stables of the 
podere. But Masaccio was too weary. Not 
even fear could put speed into his stumbling 
feet. 

And now the whole valley was a-quiver with 
the lightning, and here and there a bolt seemed 
to rend the ground. Masaccio threw up his 
terrified head and plunged heavily forward. 
Francesco called upon many saints, and made 
reckless vows to the Madonna. In answer she 
seemed to send him a thought of hope, for he 
recalled that, a few rods ahead, beside the road 
under a walnut tree, stood her very shrine. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES ^c 

Had not Concetta gathered red poppies as they 
walked together only last Sunday, and laid 
them at the blessed feet? The Madonna was a 
figure in blue and white, he remembered. She 
held Gesu Bambino upon her knee, and she 
bent her head a little, smiling always, very 
pitiful. 

The black column was upon them; the city 
had disappeared; there was no light, save 
flashes of fire; and bolts seemed to crash at 
their feet. Masaccio fairly reared in terror. 
Francesco sprang from the carriage and ran 
to the horse's bridle, for there, at the roadside, 
was the walnut tree and Our Lady's shrine. 

"Madonna mia! have pity!" cried Francesco. 

He turned a beseeching glance toward the 
shrine. The white figure of Our Lady shone 
softly through the blackness. A blind impulse 
seized him to drag himself and his frightened 
horse somehow closer to that protecting 
presence. 

The heavens opened in swift, awful fire. 
There was hideous crashing and splintering, 
and a moment later Masaccio, trembling from 
head to foot and tangled in his broken harness, 
stood and gazed helplessly at the roadside 
where his master lay crushed beneath a great 
bough of the walnut tree. From her shattered 
shrine the Madonna looked down, smiling 
always, very pitiful. 



36 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



A mile away, at Pietro's garden-house, little 
Concetta hid her face in her grandmother's bed 
and cried for fear. 

"Madonna protect thee, Checco mio!" she 
sobbed. 

II 

From the fig tree in the corner of the gar- 
den, Pietro was gathering the last basketful of 
figs, black and small and wrinkled like himself. 
"They are not worth the trouble," he said. At 
the door of the garden-house the grandmother, 
with an earthen bowl on her knee, sat slicing 
bright tomatoes and spreading them to dry in 
the sun. Francesco lay on the ground with a 
pair of long crutches beside him. His left leg 
was cut off above the knee, and his left hand 
lacked two lingers. He was in his shirt sleeves, 
for Concetta, sitting near him on a low stool, 
was darning a rent in his shabby coat. The 
lemon-colored kerchief had slipped from her 
dark curls, and Francesco could see the pretty 
line of her neck. When the darn was finished, 
she bit the thread off close, holding the worn 
sleeve against her lips that trembled a little. 
Then she spoke pleadingly : "Be content, Chec- 
co mio. It is of the Madonna's mercy that 
thou wert not killed by the lightning. What 
should I have done then, bene mio?'* 

"That had been better fortune for thee, little 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



37 



one!" Francesco answered gloomily, "and for 
me also." 

"Do not say it! do not say it! Never say 
that again, angelo mio!" and Concetta dropped 
on her knees, and taking Francesco's head in 
her two little brown hands she covered his hair 
with kisses. The soft locks were almost as 
dark as her own and quite as curling. But 
Francesco would not smile. He drew himself 
up heavily, and felt for his crutches. "Come 
with me," he said. "I have something to say 
to thee." 

Concetta helped him with coat and crutches, 
and they went slowly down the garden, across 
a bit of vineyard, stripped and golden, across 
the olive orchard to a stone bench that stood 
against the crumbling stuccoed wall, and here 
they sat down side by side. Near Francesco's 
end of the bench stood a great olive tree, gaunt 
and hollow and broken. It looked a hundred 
years old. 

When Francesco spoke, it was in the very 
words he had said on the midsummer Sunday 
when last they sat here. Concetta's chief com- 
fort in the cruel months between had been the 
thought that she should never hear them again. 

"Concetta mia, I am going to America." 
The girl grasped his arm : 

"No, no, Francesco. It is not possible. 
Never, never! Why dost thou say that?" 



3^ ITALIAN SKETCHES 

"I am worth nothing here," Francesco said 
bitterly. "And listen, Concetta. Carlo tells 
me that in America I can earn money, even 
without my leg." 

"What wilt thou do, Checco? How — wilt — 
thou — earn money ? " The words came slowly, 
as if each one hurt. 

"I shall sing in the streets, for soldi;" and he 
dug vindictively into the ground with the end 
of his crutch. 

Concetta's voice was like a little cry. 

"And I? What will become of me? Dost 
thou think of me, Francesco ?" 

But Francesco answered brutally, not look- 
ing at her. "It will be better for thee. Thou 
wilt forget. Thou must marry a sound man, 
not a miserable cripple — a thing useless and 
broken, half dead, Hke that old olive tree." 
Francesco struck the tree with his crutch and 
startled two tiny lizards that lay a-sunning on 
the gray trunk. Concetta's big eyes, bright 
with tears, followed the small, topmost branch- 
es that stood out against the sky, above the 
orchard wall. Among the silvery leaves half- 
ripened olives dangled, streaked with color, as 
if stained with dregs of wine. 

Francesco turned a sidelong glance upon the 
girl's lifted face. He began to be ashamed of 
having hurt her. 

As he looked, the pain slipped away from 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



39 



the beautiful lips and eyes, and the whole face 
lightened with some joyous thought. 

"Checco mio/' she said, and there was no 
reproach in her voice, only measureless tender- 
ness, "the olive tree has been hurt and broken 
like thyself, yet it is not useless. See, the olives 
ripen upon it as when the tree was strong; and 
it is strong still, caro mio, very strong, very brave, 
and so art thou." 

"Concetta ! Concetta ! Checco ! Checco !" 
It was Pietro's voice calling. ''Iddio sa, where 
those promessi sposi have hidden themselves." 

Concetta came running. "Eccoci! Zio mio, 
what is the matter?" 

"It is Tonino who waits. He is in haste. 
Checco must come at once ! Siibito, subito." 

At the garden gate stood Masaccio, physic- 
ally none the worse for the shock of that un- 
fortunate August afternoon, but more than 
ever puzzled in mind. He could not under- 
stand why Tonino occupied the box of No. 45, 
and even less could he conjecture why Fran- 
cesco, if he rode at all, sat behind in the carriage 
like a signore, and why his old, gay master no 
longer sang and whistled, only patted him and 
called him poveretto in a low, sad voice. 

Concetta stood beside the carriage and spoke 
softly to her lover : "If thou goest, Checco mio, 
I shall go also." 

Francesco shook his head. ''Addio, little one ; 



40 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

be content," he said kindly. 

"If thou goest, I shall go also," said Concet- 
ta, but this time she did not say it aloud. 

Ill 

The rain fell steadily. Black streams trickled 
from the roof of the Roman express, drawn up 
before the station. Two signori, the only two, 
closed their dripping umbrellas and vanished 
into the first-class carriage. But the crowd, 
pushing back and forth before the doors of the 
third-class carriages, carried no umbrellas, and 
seemed not to notice the rain. They carried 
shapeless parcels tied up in shawls, in bits of 
sacking, even in soaking newspaper ; they car- 
ried babies and wine bottles, sausages and 
loaves of bread. 

It was a small company, but the train had 
come from Florence and appeared to be already 
full. The guards were ruthlessly separating 
families and friends. "Two places here ! one 
more place ! Go to the next carriage ! You^ll 
find seats at the rear !" From the door of the 
waiting-room came sobs and piteous farewells, 
for this forlorn band of pilgrims was bound for 
Naples and the sea, and for that far-off coun- 
try whose very name is a thing of enchantment 
and of terror. 

At the door of the last carriage Francesco 
waited his turn, with his little bundle of cloth- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



41 



ing slung over his shoulder. Suddenly he felt 
a soft touch on his arm. 

''Eccomi, Francesco mio!" said the sweetest 
voice in the world. 

''Dio mio! It is Concetta," he cried, more in 
terror than in joy. 

"Two places here !" said the guard sharply. 
"There is no more time ; make haste !" There 
was a click of closing doors. Francesco was 
pushed up the step, not knowing how, Concetta 
following at his heels. The carriage was full. 
The guard closed the door. "Pronti!" he 
shouted. "Prontir echoed the guard ahead. 

"Come mai, Concetta! How didst thou leave 
home?" gasped Francesco. 

"I said that I should come," she answered 
simply. "I am going out with the mother of 
Angela and Maria. They are in the next car- 
riage." 

"And the grandmother? What hast thou 
done with her?" 

"La cugina Luigia has come to care for her," 
Concetta whispered, but the big eyes filled. 

A bell rang. "Partenza! par — ten — za!" 
called the guards, and the train started. 

The two were silent, looking out into the 
twilight wonderingly; for the girl had never 
made a journey, and the man's farthest adven- 
ture had been Perugia. Concetta gazed wist- 
fully into the gray rain, and her lips trembled ; 



42 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



Francesco looked at Concetta. She wore a 
dark shawl, and her lemon-colored kerchief 
was dulled with the wet, but her hair curled 
more beautifully than ever and her cheeks 
were like the pomegranate blossoms above the 
villa wall in June. 

"How pretty she is!" said a Florentine popo- 
lana. "And such a sweet voice ! He is a beau- 
tiful youth, also," said another ; "but that leg ! 
What a pity! Dio mio, che pcccato! and he so 
young!" 

Francesco's left hand caressed Concetta as 
she leaned against his shoulder. They were 
utterly lacking in self-consciousness ; they had 
never heard of conventions, and they thought 
only of each other. It grew quite dark. Some 
of their fellow-passengers were sleeping; some 
were eating luncheons which they took from 
newspaper parcels ; there was an odor of 
cheese and sausage and red wine. 

"Chiusi! Chiusi! Ten minutes to wait!" and 
the door flew open. "Tickets ! tickets !" said 
the guard. 

Francesco leaned down over Concetta's curly 
head. 

"We have twenty hours in Naples, carina 
mia. We will find Padre Innocenti and be 
married, nevverof" 

"As thou wilt, Checco mio" Concetta ans- 
wered softly. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 43 

"Art thou happy, little one?" 

''Si, carina, contentissima, very happy." 

IV 

"But you cannot go, I tell you. It is impos- 
sible !" The agent almost shouted, but Francesco 
did not seem to understand. 

The emigrants, in line, were moving slowly 
toward the windows where the passage-tickets 
were to be secured, but Francesco had been 
stopped by an official. 

"I tell you that you cannot go; the company 
takes no cripples; step out, you are delaying 
things." The officer fairly dragged Francesco 
from his place in the line. Concetta, always at 
his elbow, slipped out also. There were cries of 
astonishment, rage, and sympathy, but the crowd 
pressed from behind and the space closed quickly. 

Francesco struggled and shouted like a good 
Italian. "Let me alone ! I will go ! I have the 
money! Not go! Che diavolo! I will go, I 
say." 

A second officer stepped forward. He was 
older and he spoke kindly. "It is not possible, 
my poor fellow ; they should have told you. You 
have lost a leg and your hand is crippled. If we 
were to let you go aboard it would do no good ; 
you would have all the long voyage for nothing ; 
they would send you back from New York by the 
next ship." 



44 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



"But Carlo told me that I could go ; I can earn 
money; I shall sing in the streets; in Nuova 
York all are rich; they shower soldi. It is for 
that I go to Nuova York — because there are 
many, many rich signori. Carlo has told me that. 
It will be better than Buonaria. Dio mio! Dio 
mio ! But I must go !" 

''Povero ragazzo, poor boy!" ''Che peccato!" 
"They will not let him go !" The exclamations 
of sympathy went up and down the line, women 
sobbed, and children cried out in fear of they 
knew not what. The older officer drew Fran- 
-cesco away from the crowd and explained to 
him his hopeless case. His statement was short, 
but not unkind. 

"I am sorry," he said, "but there is nothing 
else to do. Have patience. Go home; you will 
find work; the city may help you. Addio!" and 
he walked away swiftly. There were thirteen 
hundred emigrants to be inspected before sun- 
down, and the officer had not time for pro- 
tracted sympathy. The cripple raged for a little ; 
he called upon his saints; he wept. And Con- 
cetta? All this time she had not made a sound, 
she had not even cried, and the great eyes held 
no tears. 

A bench ran along the wall, and Francesco sat 
upon it, his crutch beside him. His head was 
l)uried in his hands and he was crying, quietly 
now, like a tired child. He had not once noticed 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 45 

Concetta; but now she bent over him; she 
stroked his forehead; she took off his hat and 
kissed the tangled curls. 

"Do not cry, Checco mio, carissimo! Do not 
cry. Madonna will not forget us. We shall yet 
do well.'' 

Francesco started. Beneath the absorbing 
sense of his own pain stirred at last son^e 
thought of the girl who loved him, and whom, in 
his boyish way, he loved. 

^'Ma Concetta ! come mat? But thou must not 
stay! Where are Angela and Maria? — " He 
stopped short ; for Concetta, with her two hands 
on his shoulders, was looking at him. First 
anger, then pain, then wonder looked out from 
the great eyes; but only for an instant. The 
beautiful face softened suddenly and the eyes 
grew tender, even glad ; then the dimples showed 
in her cheeks, and she laughed outright, a low 
sweet laugh that showed her white teeth. "But 
Checco, Checco mio! didst thou think I wanted 
to go? I was afraid even with thee; and with- 
out thee — on that terrible sea? No, no, grazia 
di Dio!" and she hugged her lover's black head 
in sheer delight. 

"But we must find Angela and Maria — I must 
say good-by. They will be looking for us, and 
be anxious. Come, Francesco." 

They passed out upon the great wharf. It 
was but eight o'clock and the November morn- 



46 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

ing was keen with a sea wind. They looked 
upon the smoke-crowned mountain and shud- 
dered; they gazed upon the tossing gray water, 
and Concetta clung to Francesco's arm, and was 
unashamed of her joy. Far away lay the huge 
New York liner. Lighters were already loading 
with groups of frightened peasants — inland folk, 
nearly all of them, in abject terror of this cruel, 
unknown ocean; and cruel enough it looked on 
this bleak morning. 

The emigrants were everywhere; huddled in 
miserable groups along the water front, sitting 
on their bags and bundles. Many were talking 
in sharp, excited voices; some were wailing 
aloud ; a few were sleeping. Only the Neapoli- 
tans seemed gay, for they knew the sea, and 
were less afraid ; and they need not wait for their 
turn in the ship's lighters. Had they not friends 
among the many boatmen, plying back and forth 
in little black boats, between the wharves and the 
great ships, shouting, laughing, and singing as if 
there were no heart-break in the world? 

Angela, Maria, and their mother were soon 
found. They cried over Concetta, they lamented 
with Francesco. They left tremulous messages 
for friends at home. At last, with many tears 
and piteous fear, they let themselves be led 
aboard the lighter that steamed away toward the 
black hull and red smoke-stacks in the distance. 

Francesco's brow had grown dark again with 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



47 



disappointment and wounded pride. He had 
said addio to youths of his own age, no stronger, 
no braver than himself, who were nevertheless 
sailing away, in full confidence that fortune 
waited them across the sea — and he was left be- 
hind, crippled, useless, his life ruined at the start. 
"Let us go away, Checco mio! Let us go 
home!" said Concetta, with her hand upon his 
arm. 

They knew that there was a train at evening. 
Carlo had taken it once, Carlo the deceiver, who 
had so roused the ambition of poor Francesco. 
All day they wandered through the streets of the 
vast city, inquiring from time to time for San 
Antonio, where, Francesco thought, they would 
find Padre Innocenti. By chance they stood be- 
fore the vast cathedral. 

"Let us go in," Concetta whispered. Throngs 
of people were passing up and down the steps. 
The curtain at the central door was held up for 
them by a cripple with a wooden leg and a 
crutch. He was white-haired and his face 
looked like the leather of the curtain which he 
held. Francesco shivered and felt in his pocket 
for a soldo. 

"God bless you and pity you, poor boy !" mut- 
tered the old man. 

To Francesco and Concetta the great church, 
with its gilded ceiling, gorgeous paintings, and 



48 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

shining marble pavement, seemed beautiful as 
Paradise might be. With a sure instinct Con- 
cetta led her lover on, on, up the long nave, till 
,at the left, in the last chapel they saw a hundred 
candles burning before a tall statue of Our Lady. 
Concetta forgot everything, and Francesco al- 
most forgot his pain. The Madonna had pink 
cheeks, and her dress was pink and blue silk, 
with tinsel. A score of worshippers knelt on the 
chapel steps among the votive wreaths of wax 
and glittering beads. On the lowest stair, half- 
frightened by this splendid vision of the Queen 
of Heaven, so unlike the little figure in the road- 
side shrine, Concetta knelt with Francesco be- 
side her. His crutch rattled on the pavement 
as he laid it down. 

Outside in the porch, as they came away, Con- 
cetta plucked at her lover's arm. "Look, Fran- 
cesco !" 

In a corner stood a boy on crutches, with a 
tray of small merchandise slung about his neck. 
He was laughing as he made change. His hair 
curled about his head, and his dark face was 
beautiful. 

"Thou couldst do that, thou also, Checco mio !" 
said Concetta timidly. 

V 

"What do you suppose has become of No. 45 ?" 
said the blonde lady. "I believe that I stayed 
over the train in the hope of seeing him. We 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 49 

are the only people in the world who ever came 
twice to this place." 

"I stopped over to see that Niccolo once 
more," said the dark lady severely. "I may be 
extravagant enough to stay till tomorrow and go 
again to Montecorbo — at least I may, if I find 
No. 45 ;" and they laughed at their mutual folly. 

"Listen," said the blonde lady. "What a won- 
derful voice!" 

A man was singing a Neapolitan lovesong. 
The voice was full of sweetness and of pain. 
The visitors turned the corner, and on the steps 
of the little cathedral they saw the singer. 

His quick eye instantly noted the strangers, 
and he came nimbly toward them. 

"Do you wish some matches, Signore?" he 
asked with the old smile. 

''Si, si'' — began the blonde lady and stopped. 

''Madonna mia!" exclaimed Francesco. "It is 
my signora!" 

"Helen," cried the blonde lady, "Helen, it is 
No. 45!" 

"If the signore would have the kindness to 
stay," said Francesco, as he stumped beside 
them toward their hotel, "Tonino will give good 
service. Si, si, I might go also on the box with 
Tonino. It would be a great honor to accom- 
pany the signore." 

"Will you take us by way of the farm, to see 



50 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



Concetta?' asked the blonde lady. 

"Ma si, Signora, surely. The signora is very 
kind. And there is the bambina. She has eleven 
months, Signore; she is beautiful, you know." 

"Is she as beautiful as her mother?" 

Francesco shrugged his shoulders, and smiled 
wisely. 

''E sempre hellissima, Concetta," he said. "Al- 
ways very beautiful." 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 51 



BETTINA: A TRUE STORY 

Bettina's grandmother sat on the low stone 
door-sill, where the sunshine was hot even in 
January. The old woman was knitting, but 
her needles clicked slowly, and her head 
drooped more and more. Bettina watched till 
the wrinkled hands lay idle. "Nonna is asleep," 
said Bettina softly to Giannettino. Giannet- 
tino said nothing ; he lifted one yellow ear, and 
partly opened one eye for a second; then he 
stretched his two fore paws further into the 
sunshine, put his head down on them and lay 
quite still. "Gianettino is asleep," said Bet- 
tina to herself. Bettina looked at the chest- 
nut-roaster that stood beside her grand- 
mother's knee, and at the little table covered 
with bright red apples. "If I go to sleep," she 
thought, "Checco may take an apple, or some 
chestnuts." She stood up and slowly counted 
the chestnuts in the roaster. There were 
twenty-one. She knew the number of red 
apples on the table, for she had counted them 
when she laid them out, and Nonna had sold 
three since; one to the match-vendor, and one 
each to Annetta and Carolina on their way to 
school. 

The charcoal-man's lean horse came slowly 



52 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



around the corner, and then the street was 
quiet, for it was noon, and the people were 
eating or sleeping. Even from the market, 
half a block away, there was little noise. The 
calls of the fried-fish man and the polenta man 
could be heard now and then; and the salad- 
woman's donkey gave a long, lonely shriek 
from time to time. He had been standing in 
one spot since five o'clock in the morning, and 
life seemed dull to him. 

Checco's father passed, carrying his lunch on 
a brown paper: a piece of bread and two, 
twisted, delicious-looking little fried fish. Bet- 
tina wondered what they tasted like. She had 
her own lunch in her pocket tied under her 
apron, but it was only a bit of bread, and she 
did not feel hungry. 

Checco's father nodded pleasantly at Bettina, 
as he passed to his own doorstep and sat down 
to eat his lunch in the sunshine. "The grand- 
mother sleeps well," he said. "And Giannettino 
also," answered Bettina. "Poor little crea- 
ture !" said Checco's father. He meant Bet- 
tina, and she heard, but she did not mind; she 
thought, "He is kind-hearted," for Bettina was 
used to pity from her friends, and even from 
strangers. She was, indeed, a "poor little crea- 
ture." All the five years of her life she had 
been weak and in pain. Her hands and face 
were covered with sores, so that, sometimes, 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



53 



people turned away in disgust when they 
passed her in the street. 

Bettina's mother spent all the days at a 
great public fountain, washing Hnen. She 
used to come home with hands red and chapped 
from the cold water, and with rheumatism in 
her knees. She was a tall, coarse-featured wo- 
man, but she was always gentle to Bettina and 
called her "my poor, dear, little thing." Bet- 
tina, being too feeble to play with the other 
children, stayed with her grandmother and 
Giannettino. Nonna was so deaf that it was 
hard to talk to her, so Bettina talked mostly to 
Giannettino, to whom she told all her thoughts. 

People said of Bettina, who never cried: 
"How patient she is, poor dear !" But Bettina 
was not always patient. When she saw An- 
netta and Carolina, who lived on the floor be- 
low her, playing at hide-and-seek up and down 
the black staircase, where there were the dark- 
est of corners to hide in, Bettina, breathless and 
faint from cHmbing the one hundred and six 
steps that led to her mother's attic, would 
stamp her little foot feebly and say hoarsely: 
"It isn't fair, Giannettino mio, it isn't fair! I, 
too, want to run and play, and not be so tired." 
But when she remembered lame Nino with 
the crutch, she felt ashamed. 

Bettina moved further away from Giannet- 
tino into a narrow strip of shadow. It was 



54 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



cold, but her head ached. Checco's father had 
finished his lunch, and he, too, was sound 
asleep, filling up the doorway so that Checco, 
coming out, leaped nimbly over him. Checco 
smiled knowingly at Bettina, as much as to 
say : "Old folks must sleep at noon, Tina." He 
did not even look at the chestnuts and apples, 
and Bettina was grateful. Presently two wom- 
en came by talking. They were Marta, the 
seamstress, and lame Nino's mother, who sold 
papers in the Via Tritone. 

"Nino must be selling the papers," thought 
Bettina. "I have not seen him since Christmas 
Day." 

"I tell you," said Nino's mother, "my boy 
walks as well as anybody. She is a saint, the 
English doctor, and works miracles ! The 
children go to her lame and blind, and she 
sends them away cured. God be praised for 
my Nino, poveretto, now he can be like other 
boys and grow into a strong man — who 
knows?" The women stopped at the corner, 
where their ways separated. Bettina left her 
doorstone and stood close beside them, while 
they said long good-bys. Then she followed 
Nino's mother. She wanted to speak to her, 
but she could not get her breath. After a 
minute Nino's mother noticed the uneven little 
steps at her side and looked down. 

"Why, it is Bettina! Where are you going 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



55 



little one?" 

Bettina looked up at her. She gasped and 
panted in her excitement. ''Where is the Eng- 
lish saint, who does miracles?" she said. 

''Poverina!" cried Nino's mother, "it would 
be indeed a miracle if she could cure that little 
face of yours !" 

**Where is she?" said Bettina simply. "Is it 
far?" 

"Very far, little one; across the river in 
Trastevere, near the Ponte Sesto. There is a 
big white house called the 'Hospital for Chil- 
dren.' It is written over the door. You must 
get your mother to take you, Bettina mia, the 
English doctor might cure ; who knows?" But 
Nino's mother shook her head as she went up 
the stairs. "It would be a true miracle to cure 
that one !" she said. 

Bettina went back to the door-stone. Gian- 
nettino woke up, and she gave him part of her 
bread. Then she told him as well as she could 
about the house where they made sick children 
well. "It is far, Giannettino mio,' she said, 
"we must wait till morning. 

Early next morning, Bettina, carrying Gian- 
nettino in her arms, walked with her mother 
to the end of the little market square and bade 
her good-by at the corner. Except when it was 
stormy, or when Bettina was too ill to go over 
the one hundred and six steps, the three always 



56 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

made this journey. When Bettina could not 
go, she sent Giannettino, who would come run- 
ning back up the stairs to his little mistress, 
with mamma's good-by kiss on his yellow 
head. When the three reached the corner, 
there was always the same conversation. 
"Good-by, little one. Be good." "A kiss also 
for Giannettino, mamma, and one more for 
me." "Good-by, my dearest. Take care of the 
grandmother." 

Today when mamma was out of sight, Bet- 
tina did not go back to take care of grand- 
mother. Instead, she hugged Giannettino 
tighter and, half afraid of what she was doing, 
turned down a steep, narrow street that led 
to a wider one at the end of which, she knew, 
was the great fountain. Further than the 
square of the fountain she did not know her 
way ; but she knew that she must cross the 
river at the Ponte Sesto. The little square was 
full of people, though it was so early ; but above 
the noise of the street venders and the coach- 
men Bettina could hear the roar of the water 
that gushed out from the four great mouths 
and fell into a basin so broad that it seemed 
like a lake. The water lay all in shadow, for 
the winter sun would not reach it till nearly 
noon. Bettina watched the women drawing 
water from the fountain. One had a bright 
copper can which she lifted steadily and car- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



57 



ried away on her head. Another had two big 
straw-covered wine bottles that took long to 
fill. Bettina looked at many faces before she 
decided whom to speak to. One woman, with 
curly dark hair and red lips, smiled down at her 
and gave her courage. 

"Excuse me, could you tell us the way to the 
Ponte Sesto?" asked Bettina. 

"But it is far away, my child !" said the wo- 
man, kindly. 

"I know, but we can find it," said Bettina, 
confidently. 

"It is a brave baby," said the woman to her 
neighbor. "Well, little one, take the street 
straight ahead here and cross two narrow 
streets. The third is the Corso, and you must 
turn to your left, but you can ask someone 
there where to go next. Do you understand?" 

"Yes, thank you," said Bettina, and she went 
slowly on through the crowd. It was long 
before she found the river. Sometimes she 
could not understand the directions that peo- 
ple gave her ; sometimes she saw no one whom 
she dared to ask. Sometimes she was so tired 
that she sat down in a doorway to rest. 

Bettina and Giannettino saw many strange 
and beautiful sights that morning. They 
passed a wonderful, round church, with a porch 
of great shadowy columns ; in the centre of a 
square, they saw a huge stone elephant with 



58 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

a tower on his back; they got lost in the big- 
gest market that they had ever seen. Here a 
boy had three yellow puppies for sale, and 
Giannettino became so excited that he 
squirmed out of Bettina's arms to dance and 
bark about the three puppies, who pulled at 
their cords and danced and barked as well as 
their baby voices and their clumsy baby paws 
allowed. When Bettina's courage and Gian- 
nettino's patience were almost spent, they 
reached the river and the Bridge of Pope Six- 
tus. The water was high and shining in the 
sunlight. They had never seen anything so 
beautiful. It seemed to Bettina that there 
were palaces and churches and towers every- 
where. Far up the stream on the further side 
a vast dome floated in the blue like a giant 
soap-bubble, and high on the hill a great man 
on a tall horse stood out against the sky. Bet- 
tina wondered what he could be doing up in 
the air. She thought it must be St. Michael, 
the Archangel. 

Beyond the bridge, Bettina had to ask a new 
question: "Will you tell me how to find the 
house where they cure sick children?" Poor 
Httle Bettina ! She asked her question over and 
over again, but no one knew. One sent her in 
this direction, another in that. Her back ached 
and her feet were sore. Giannettino was rest- 
less and whined. Bettina had forgotten to bring 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



59 



the piece of bread for their lunch. "We must 
find the place, Giannettino," said Bettina 
bravely, but her voice trembled. "Nino's mother 
said it was here, beyond the bridge." Giannet- 
tino whimpered, for Bettina hugged him closer, 
which made him feel worse because his stomach 
was empty. "I am sorry, Giannettino mio. I 
have asked a hundred people," said Bettina. 
"Here comes a kind-looking man. I will ask 
him, also." 

A tall gentleman was passing, holding a 
beautiful little boy by the hand. They were 
laughing and talking, and Bettina was not afraid. 
"Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us where to find 
the house where they cure sick children?" Bet- 
tina's knees trembled under her, and her eyes 
filled with tears. 

At first the gentleman looked puzzled, but the 
little boy said: "I know, papa, she means the 
day hospital for children. It is around the next 
corner, only a little way. Maria showed it to 
me." 

"Very well, Carlino, point out the way. Come, 
little girl, my son will show you the hospital." 
The boy ran ahead, and Giannettino ran after 
him, for Bettina's tired arms could no longer 
hold their uneasy burden. She followed, at the 
side of the kind gentleman, and in a minute, 
Carlino stopped at a sunny door over which 
there were letters that Bettina could not read. 



6o ITALIAN SKETCHES 

Carlino rang the bell, and the new friends 
waited till the door was opened by a pleasant- 
faced servant, who helped a lame boy down the 
step, while she greeted the tall gentleman. 

"We met this little girl in the street, asking 
the way to the hospital," said the gentleman. 
"Can you take her in?" 

"The hours are over," said the woman, "until 
to-morrow." 

Then Bettina burst into loud crying: "I want 
to see the doctor-lady! I must see the doctor- 
lady, who does miracles." 

"Poor baby, poor baby!" said the servant. 
"I will call the doctor ; she is still here." 

Near a broad window, where a white azalea 
shone in the sunlight, Bettina stood at the doc- 
tor's knee. 

"Where do you live, dear?" asked the doctor. 

"Via Stretta, near the market." 

"But that is very far. Who brought you over 
here?" 

"No one. I came with Giannettino." 

"And your mother?" 

"Mamma washes. She is at work." 

"Was there no one else to come?" 

"No, Signora Doctor, there is only the Nonna, 
and she is too old. She is deaf, and the streets 
frighten her." 

"How did you know about the hospital?" 

"It was lame Nino's mother. I heard her tell- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 6i 

ing Marta of the lady who does miracles. Are 
you the lady? Will you cure me quick, please, 
so that I can go home to Norma?" Bettina 
felt as if the room were turning around, and the 
white azalea danced before her eyes. Then she 
found herself in the doctor's lap. 

"Be patient, little one. We will see what can 
be done. What have you eaten to-day?" 

"Nothing, Signora. I forgot the bread, and 
Giannettino is hungry also." 

Giannettino, who lay in a despairing heap on 
the sunny floor, moved his tail and whined as 
he heard his name mentioned. 

The doctor rang a bell and the pleasant-faced 
servant entered. 

"Bring a bowl of soup here, Maria, and bring 
something for the dog as well. This child has 
had no breakfast and is ready to faint." 

"Quickly, Signora Doctor, and you? it is one 
o'clock." 

"Tell Costanza that I will lunch here. And, 
Maria, get a bed ready in the little nursery." 

Bettina had never tasted anything like the 
soup that Maria brought to her in a big blue 
bowl. There were long, delicious pieces of mac- 
caroni in it, and bits of something white and 
soft that was not bread. Bettina wondered if 
it could be chicken. She had heard Checco tell 
about eating chicken when, on a holiday, he had 
helped old Giacomo wash dishes at a restaurant 



62 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

in Via Tritone. Giannettino, with a big cracked 
plate set neatly on a newspaper, was eating the 
best dinner of his life. He would not even 
look up when Bettina spoke to him. 

"Are you happy, Giannettino mio?" Giannet- 
tino growled and choked over a big mouthful. 
"He has not time to be polite," said the doctor, 

After lunch Bettina was undressed and laid 
in a bed, where she promptly went to sleep. 
When she awakened the doctor was in the room 
with a pretty lady in a white apron and cap. 

"Now, little one," said the doctor, "first of 
all you must let nurse give you a nice bath." 
And the doctor went out of the room. 

Bettina was frightened at first, at the strange 
place, at the little bath tub and the new lady in 
the white cap. But the face under the cap was 
so gay, and the water felt so warm and the 
sponge was so funny (Bettina had never seen 
a sponge except through the glass of the phar- 
macy window on the corner) that she forgot 
her shyness and told the nurse all about Nonna 
and mamma and Checco; and how she could 
not play hide-and-seek on the stairs like Annetta 
and Carolina; and how she wanted to get well 
and go to school. 

The nurse put Bettina into the bed again, 
and began to arrange a small table with curi- 
ous bottles and fat little pots. Then she spread 
out a long narrow table that had folding legs. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



63 



and laid a long white towel over it. Bettina 
wondered if there were going to be another 
lunch. Presently the doctor came in, and said, 
cheerily: "Now, little girl, we'll see what can 
be done for you." The nurse placed a pillow 
at one end of the narrow table and, lifting 
Bettina from the bed, laid her softly down on 
the white towel. Very gently doctor and nurse 
examined the poor little body, bathing the sore 
places with something soft and healing that 
Bettina liked. 

Then the doctor said, and the wide blue eyes 
were grave and pitiful : "Now, you must be a 
brave little girl, for I have to hurt you." 

"Why must you hurt me?" said Bettina. 

"Because, dear, this yellow salve will cure 
all these poor little sore spots, but it will pain 
you at first." 

"If it will cure me, I don't mind the hurt," 
said Bettina. 

"That's a brave baby," said the nurse. 
"Now, then, courage !" 

Poor little Bettina! The yellow salve 
burned and smarted, so that the tears came, 
even though she shut her eyes tight to keep 
them in. But she did not complain; she did 
not even cry out aloud. When it was over the 
doctor and nurse praised her and petted her, 
so that she almost forgot the pain. 

While the nurse was dressing Bettina, the 



64 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

doctor went away, and came back in hat and 
coat. 

"The child cannot go alone," she said, "it 
will be dark. I'll take her with me as far as 
the Fountain, and then she will be almost 
home. I am late already." 

At the corner, the doctor called a coachman 
and Bettina, for the first time in her life, had 
the joy of riding in a carriage. 

The child sat very straight and still, holding 
fast to Giannettino, who trembled from the 
tips of his yellow ears to the end of his yellow 
tail, with strange and terrifying new sensa- 
tions. From the carriage the world looked so 
different to Bettina that, if the doctor had not 
called her attention to every turning, so that 
she might know how to come again, the drive 
would have been like a dream. The clouds over 
the river were pink with sunset and, at the 
Fountain, the afternoon shadows were already 
dark. 

"Come day after to-morrow," said the doctor, 
"and come early, dear." 

Nonna sat in a low chair, with a pot of char- 
coal in her lap, which was her way of keeping 
warm. She was moaning to herself : "The child 
is lost, lost ! It grows dark and she does not 
come." 

The door opened softly, and Gianettino came 
prancing across the floor and leaped almost into 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 65 

the hot charcoal. Bettina threw her arms 
around her grandmother's neck and fairly 
shouted in her ear : "Oh, Nonna, Nonna mia, the 
doctor-lady is making me well !" 

Bettina was very tired, and the yellow salve 
still smarted on the poor little arms and legs. 
In the night she dreamed that Checco was 
touching the sore places with a lighted match, 
and she cried out and woke up. But Bettina 
told no one of the pain and, when Friday came, 
she bade Nonna and mamma good-by cheerily, 
and started bravely on her way. To-day she 
left Giannettino at home with Nonna. "He got 
so heavy, dear Giannettino," she said. 

Bettina found her way easily this time, and 
though the walk seemed long, she did not even 
sit down to rest. Just before she pulled the 
bell at the hospital door, her heart failed her, 
for she remembered the yellow salve that 
burned. She wanted to run home to Nonna 
and Giannettino, and she felt little and afraid. 
She stood on the step and talked to herself 
gravely : "If you don't go in, Bettina, you will 
never get well, like Nino. It is the yellow thing 
that cures, the doctor said. Perhaps there will 
be more soup, Bettina, and chicken!" She 
pulled the bell, hard, and was soon in the sunny 
room where the white azalea was whiter than 
ever, having six new blossoms. 

Every other day for two months Bettina 



66 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

made her pilgrimage. Through all the first 
month the treatment was painful, and the 
tears would often come from under the tight- 
shut lids, but, as she grew better, the little 
patient became gay and even noisy, and was 
such a chatterbox that she had to be sent 
home, else she would have stayed till dark. 

In her eagerness to be cured, Bettina was im- 
patient, sometimes, to the point of naughtiness. 
One day the nurse decided that the painful salve 
would better be omitted, as it had done its work. 
Instead of being grateful, Bettina began to cry 
angrily: 

"I want the yellow thing that hurts 1 Put on 
the yellow thing that hurts! It is that that 
makes me well !" she wailed, to the astonishment 
-of the nurse. 

On a beautiful spring day, Bettina was to 
make her last visit to the hospital, and mamma 
was to go also, to learn from the nurse how to 
take care of the little girl in the future. 

Though it was a holiday, mamma had some 
clean linen to carry to the ironer in a far-off 
street. Mamma walked very straight with the 
big white parcel on her head; Bettina held her 
hand and trotted along gaily, for she seldom 
felt tired now. Giannettino went also, but he 
had grown too big to be carried. He ran so far 
ahead that Bettina and her mother looked 
anxiously after him, expecting him to disappear 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 67 

entirely. 

When the linen had been left in the Via 
Giulia and they came into familiar streets, there 
was so much to show to mamma that Bettina's 
tongue wagged faster than Giannettino's tail. 
There was the market where Giannettino had 
barked at the puppies ; there was the bridge, and 
the great dome; there were the yellow roses 
hanging over the wall of a palace garden. 
Bettina had watched every bud in the winter; 
sometimes there had been only three or four, 
but now there were thousands and the odor 
filled the street. 

In the doctor's sunny room, the white azalea 
was gone, and a great pot of tulips stood in its 
place, but the doctor's sweet face had not 
changed. Every one was so kind that Bettina's 
mother could not think of words enough to say, 
so she dropped upon her knees and kissed the 
doctor's hand, and cried a little behind her apron. 

Everybody petted and kissed Bettina, and 
called her a brave little girl ; and Maria declared 
that she wouldn't know her for the same child, 
she was so improved. 

Bettina dragged mamma from room to room, 
to see the bed and the bath, the operating-table 
and even the pot of yellow salve. It was hard 
to keep her quiet long enough to give the doctor 
and nurse a chance to talk; but, when the three 
were in the street, and Maria had closed the 



68 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

white door, Bettina was quite still, because of 
something in her throat that choked her. So 
mamma did the talking, and was so full of 
praises for doctor and nurse and Maria, that 
Bettina grew happy again, and when she reached 
the top of the one hundred and six steps, she 
was not too tired to shout the whole story into 
Nonna's ear. 



THE BOYS OF ITALY* 

Introduction to The Heart of a Boy 

Because I am indebted for many pleasures 
to the boys of Italy; because their faces and 
their voices will always come back to me when 
I remember the sunny city squares, the olive 
orchards, and the mountain paths where I 
talked with them, I am glad to show my grati- 
tude by introducing a few of these far-away 
friends to their American brothers. 

Since in Italy I keep holiday, and am unwill- 
ing to go to school often, even as a visitor, the 
boys whom I know best are street boys. 
The Beggars 
In a great seaport like Naples, where there 
is much poverty, and in little towns, where 
everybody is poor, the beggars make one sad. 
The boys who beg are of all kinds. There is 
the impertinent beggar, who looks as if he 
might grow up to be a highway robber; there 
is the pale, whining beggar, who follows a 
stranger from street to street and is as hard 
to get rid of as a mosquito ; there is the occa- 
sional beggar, contented enough over his play 
until he spies a "foreigner" and thinks : "Here 
is a chance to get a penny." Of these last is 

^Reprinted by courtesy of Rand, McNally and Company 

69 



70 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



the rosy-cheeked rogue of five or six years 
who looks up with great sad eyes, and red lips 
that smile in spite of him, and says : "Signora, 
I am dying of hunger." When he is laughed at 
he laughs, too, and runs away to play, and to 
lie in wait for a more sympathetic stranger. 

It is always hard to refuse the appeal of a 
child, and we knew often that some of these 
troublesome little fellows were scantily fed. 
Still, the least that the foreigner can do in 
Italy is to help the wise folk who are striving 
to make begging unnecessary and impossible, 
and, for the most part, we kept our vow that 
we would not give coppers to children. We 
found, however, an innocent way of softening 
the discipline for them and for ourselves by 
candies, sweet wafers, and even "educator" 
biscuits, left over from our voyage. The de- 
light with which these things were received 
brought tears to our eyes sometimes. 

I shall never forget emptying my bag for a 
group of clamorous, ragged, half-starved 
peasant children on an Umbrian hillside. As I 
was groping for the last candies the grand- 
mother came close to me and held out a bony 
hand. "Haven't you one for the old woman, 
signora?" she pleaded. I realized as never be- 
fore how in Italy sugar is so dear that the 
poorest people pine and sicken for the taste 
of something sweet, as soldiers have done in 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 71 

camp or in prison. 

A step above the beggar on the road to self- 
support is the boy who offers a service for his 
soldo. Very likely he only rings a bell which 
you were just about to ring; or he points you 
out a door which you know as well as he ; or 
he turns handsprings along the road beside 
your carriage, and does it so well that you 
persuade yourself that you are rewarding skill, 
instead of encouraging beggary, as you throw 
out your pennies ; or he asks, "Will you please 
make a portrait of me?" and expects a copper 
in return for the favor of posing. In any case, 
he is so quick and so merry that you can't 
reject the superfluous attention, and some- 
times you find him useful. Moreover, if you 
refuse to let him carry your coat, or show you 
the way, he is pretty sure to beg for a soldo, 
and it is better to let him earn it. 

One thing I have noticed among even the 
roughest street boys in Italy. They are al- 
most never unfair or ungenerous to one an- 
other. It is safe to hand all the candies to the 
biggest boy in a group and trust him to give 
a just share to each of the others, down to the 
baby in the red apron. At the railroad station 
of Cortona, one hot August afternoon, we 
were besieged by a band of urchins so ragged 
that their clothes seemed in danger of falling 
off. "Let me carry your bag, signora !" "Would 



72 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



you like me to get you a carriage?" "Give me 
a soldo for charity ; I have great hunger !" We 
ignored them until our luggage was safe in the 
hotel omnibus. Then, finding that the omni- 
bus must wait for the train from Rome, due 
in half an hour, we became more sociable. 
After much explanation, we induced the 
youngsters to stand in a group instead of in a 
straight line while I took a photograph of 
them. Then I brought out the blue package of 
candies. It was but small in proportion to the 
number of grinning mouths. To the naughti- 
est, roughest, most impish boy of them all I 
said : *Tf I give you these, will you divide 
evenly?" "Yes, signora, surely." And he 
stood in the center and counted out with ab- 
solute fairness till the last candy was gone. 
The only privilege which he kept for himself 
was that of licking the blue paper. 

The train from Rome brought two army 
officers, and we were deserted by our little 
friends, two of whom fell upon the soldiers, 
seized their luggage, and with eloquent tongues 
persuaded them that the two-mile, up-hill 
vv^alk was more comfortable than driving, and 
that it would be nothing to carry the heavy 
knapsacks. These last, in fact, were already 
slung upon the slim, boyish shoulders. As our 
omnibus lumbered up the steep, sunny hill we 
passed the two tall officers and the two tiny 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



73 



guides. The boys saluted us, laughing, and 
proudly trying to carry themselves erect under 
a weight that might have tired strong men. 
The Guides 

I wish that I had pictures of all the little 
guides whose services I have received or re- 
fused. As I look back, I wonder how I had 
the heart to refuse any of them, even the 
wicked imps at Frascati who told new and con- 
tradictory lies every day, and it is to be feared, 
stole the figs and peaches from the garden. 

I remember one ragamuffin who, in the 
shadow of a Greek temple at Paestum, told 
us in English that he had lived in New York. 
Another, at Naples, insisted that we were 
looking for the American consul (as we cer- 
tainly were) and that he would show us the 
way (which we knew quite well). 

"Where did you learn English?" I asked, 
for he spoke prettily. 

"In the street, signora." 

At the top of a steep street in Perugia we 
were almost mobbed by a group of tiny boys 
determined to guide us whether we wanted 
them or no. 

"Signora, I will take you to San Bernardino." 

"Thank you, but we have just been there." 

"And to San Severo." 

"But we know that, too." 

"To San Lorenzo and San Domenico." 



74 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



"We have seen them often." 

Then the biggest boy, dancing up and down 
before us, and grinning from ear to ear, reeled 
off the names of a dozen churches of Perugia, 
including San Pietro, without the walls, far 
beyond our walking distance. When we could 
be heard, we said: 
' "No, no ! you are all too late." 

^^Sif si, signora, troppo tardi, too late, too 
late!" and he went off gayly. He walked on 
his hands, and his feet waved in the air with a 
fine, careless grace that led us to believe that 
this was his habitual manner of walking. We 
wondered if he would have guided us in this 
fashion all the way to San Pietro. 

I am grateful to two little fellows in Foligno, 
who knew all the short cuts and who prattled 
of saints and painters with much fluency and 
no more blunders than those of grown guides 
or, perhaps, even of guide books. I have long 
felt, too, that I owe an opology to the fat boy 
who rode on the back of our carriage the whole 
distance from Amalfi to Sorrento, meeting with 
unconquerable good nature our undisguised 
efforts to get rid of him. His courtesy in 
telling the names of places, in holding um- 
brellas, and in gathering rosemary and bright 
berries from the rocks above us ; more than 
all, his sweetness of spirit won our hearts in 
the end, so that we gave him his fee and 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 75 

thanked him as cordially as if we had begged 
for his company. 

But the boy whom I shall always remember 
as the best of guides lives in a little town with 
a hard name, — San Gimignano, near Siena, 
Hundreds of years ago it was called San Gim- 
ignano of the Beautiful Towers, and it has 
changed less than most old cities. Many of its 
towers still stand, and on its hilltop, it looks 
like the walled and towered towns that the 
painters put into their pictures five hundred 
years ago. It is a poor little city, but it was 
rich once, when great artists came to paint 
lovely frescoes on the walls of its churches ; 
and these things one still goes to see. 

As we climbed down from the absurd little 
diligence, a public carriage something like a 
stage-coach that had brought us up the dusty 
hill one August day, a group of small boys 
stood in the square of San Gimignano, each 
one eager to be taken as our guide. My artist 
companion quickly chose the smallest of them 
all, because, instead of teasing, he stood and 
smiled at us in a jolly fashion, as much as to 
say : "You may have me if you like, but I shall 
be happy either way." 

"Can you guide?" 

"Yes, signora." 

"Do you know the city?" 

"Oh, yes, signora." 



y6 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

"How old are you?" (He looked about six.) 

"Nine years old, signora. I am little." 

Many Italians are blond, and this little fel- 
low had wide blue eyes and fair skin and pale 
brown hair. He was little, as he said, but his 
pink cheeks were as round as those of a painted 
cherub, and his red lips were always smiling. 

He proved a wise little guide, even leaving 
us to eat our luncheon alone in a garden on 
the height, meeting us in the square two hours 
later according to promise. 

When we were too tired for more sight- 
seeing, and the artist wished to go outside the 
walls and sketch the towers, he knew "the 
best place." He said : "I carried the things for 
an English lady every day all summer. The 
English lady always painted. She did not see 
anything, signora. She did not go to the 
Cathedral, nor to San Agostino, nor to the 
Palazzo ; she was painting every day." 

While the artist sketched I sat on the burnt 
grass at the roadside and listened to my guide, 
who spoke correctly and prettily, as the com- 
mon people often do in Tuscany, and whose 
voice was pure music. He ate the remains of 
our simple lunch and smiled over it so beatifi- 
cally that I knew he could not be accustomed 
to delicacies. 

"What do you have to eat at home, every 
day?" I asked, forgetting good manners. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 77 

"Bread, signora." 

"Don't you have soup?" 

"Yes, soup on Sundays, signora, because 
Sunday is a holiday." 

"Do you never have meat?" 

"Meat? Never, signora. We are poor." 

I stopped the catechism, ashamed of my 
curiosity. Then he told me that his father was 
in the hospital in Siena, and that he was the 
oldest of four children and helped his mother. 
His name was Gaetano Benincasa, and he had 
never been farther from home than the monas- 
tery, which he pointed out, some two miles 
away, where, he said, they gave bread to the 
poor people on Saturdays. 

"Have you never been down to Poggibonsi?" 
I asked, indicating the little town at the foot 
of the mountain, not eight miles away. 

"No, signora, never. We are poor," and I 
wished that my Italian was equal to something 
more than asking questions. 

Presently two boys came by, dragging a 
little cart. They were ragged and rough, with 
harsh voices and hard faces. They stopped to 
talk, or rather to shriek at us, and I noticed 
that Gaetano answered them quite civilly. 
When they were gone he lifted his big eyes 
with a puzzled look. 

"Those boys are bad," he said. "They are 
bad to their mother. They are rich," he added. 



yg ITALIAN SKETCHES 

"They own a field." 

The last we saw of Gaetano, he was running 
after the diligence to catch a big, red-cheeked 
peach that we threw out to him, hoping it 
might not make him ill. It was far too hard 
to eat. 

I shall not see him again. Perhaps he is so 
grown and changed that I should not know 
him if I saw him, but, sometimes, in a picture 
gallery or great shadowy church, the eyes of 
some boy angel look out from the wall with 
a confiding friendliness that recalls my little 
guide of San Gimignano. 

The Workers 

I have been told over and over that the 
Italian poor are lazy. Italians themselves say 
it, and visiting foreigners say it, yet, had I 
not been told, I should never have discovered 
it for myself. They are often idle, it is true, 
and there is, doubtless, a lazy class, but every- 
where even in Naples — which has the name of 
being laziest of all places I was daily im- 
pressed by the hard toil of the poor folk, even 
of the children. 

This is not the place to tell of the pale, over- 
worked little girls whom I have seen, but I 
could muster a regiment of boy workers. 
There was a little spool maker in a dark door- 
way of one of the worst streets in Naples, — a 
street where the sun never reaches the pave- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 79 

ment, not even at noon; there was the little 
shoemaker in Assisi, who worked all the long 
summer afternoons, and had always a smile 
for the passing stranger ; there was the boy at 
the reel in a dingy weaver's shop in Prato, 
where there was neither air nor light, and the 
wood and charcoal man's boy whom I saw 
every day in Florence, and who made Enrico's 
friend Coretti seem entirely real. Boys who 
work in the open air are more fortunate. The 
rope makers, the olive gatherers, the little 
boatmen, fishermen, gardeners, and, in the 
town, the vendors of flowers and onions, of 
birds and puppies, looked happy enough. 

But even out of doors much of the work is 
too hard for the young workers. The boy 
who walks five miles at dawn to cut fagots 
on the mountain brings down, at evening, a 
load that bows him double, and covers him, all 
except his legs, so that he looks like a bit of 
Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. In the 
city streets one is constantly shocked by the 
burdens that slender boys of ten or twelve are 
allowed to carry, and by the carts that they are 
allowed to draw or push. 

I watched a lad one morning trying to drag 
a charcoal cart on a street that had a scarcely 
perceptible rise. I had, in fact, never noticed 
that it was not level. The street was wide, 
and the boy tried to take long tacks, as a don- 



80 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

key will do on a side hill; but the load pulled 
him back, and he could not turn the corner 
till a stranger, observing his trouble, gave the 
cart a strong push from behind. Nor shall I 
forget tw^o tiny road menders on the way to 
La Verna, who looked solemn and withered 
like little old men. 

Sometimes we came upon a boy whose work 
had the charm of adventure, even of danger. 
In the Furlo Pass — a great defile in the Apen- 
nines — we looked up at a cliff that seemed 
straight as a wall and saw a man, two women, 
and a boy cutting grass. How they got there 
we never knew. 

The rocks above and beneath seemed abso- 
lutely sheer, and below them roared a moun- 
tain river. The boy had a bag tied to his 
waist, and a sickle in his hand. The bag was 
filled with grass, and it dragged or swung 
along the rock as the boy moved from one 
green tuft to another. He saw the strangers 
down in the pass, across the stream, and, as if 
to boast of his perilous position, he quietly 
dislodged a stone with his heel. It fell to the 
river without striking the cliff. The boy 
laughed, but I, on the broad Roman road far 
below, felt dizzy, and looked away. 

In the Alban Hills, one morning in late 
October, when the rains had made the grass 
soft and deep and filled it full of pink-tipped 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 8 1 

daisies, we heard a muffled, pattering sound on 
the road, three or four new voices at the villa 
gate, and presently cries from the kitchen: 
"The sheep are coming! The sheep are 
coming !" 

There they were, — a great white, woolly 
flock, four shepherds, three big white dogs, 
one donkey, and, last of all, the pastorello, the 
shepherd boy. He wore a sheepskin coat, and 
carried in his arms a tiny, new-born lamb. He 
dropped the lamb into the long grass, where 
it lay for an hour without moving. 

The shepherds surrounded a large space of 
grass with a cord and stakes. This took about 
five minutes. The sheep were driven into it, 
and in fifteen minutes every daisy within the 
inclosure had disappeared. 

The pastorello was most friendly and from 
him I learned how they had come from near 
Perugia, driving the flock through the warm 
Umbrian valleys and over the white roads of 
the Campagna. They had been eleven days 
on the way. Here, on the southern hills, they 
would find pasture all through the winter. 

That night the men slept beside their sheep 
under the stars, and the white dogs kept 
watch; but I noticed that the pastorello slept 
in the little shepherd's hut with some of the 
mother sheep and baby lambs. 

A day or two later we went down to the 



S2 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

city, reluctantly leaving the shepherds and the 
sheep. In January I returned for a day and I 
sought the pastor ello on many steep hillsides. 
At last I found the flock and an older shepherd, 
but when I asked for the little one I was told : 
"The pastorello has gone to Rome, signora." 
The Schoolboys 

As for the schoolboys, Enrico's journal and 
the pictures show them far better than I can. 

School children in Italy, boys and girls, are 
•almost always accompanied to and from school 
by father, mother, grandmother, or nurse; so 
that, passing a school at closing time any day, 
one may see a group of men and women 
waiting in the street. Often the mother or 
grandmother of one boy is escort to four or 
five little neighbors. 

Though Enrico's story was written long ago, 
and schools and fashions of dress have 
changed, one may still see, in almost any city 
street in Italy, schoolboys wearing black 
aprons like Nelli's, or glazed caps like Franti's ; 
and on cold days nearly all, from the poorest 
street boy to the signorino, wear loose cloaks 
like that under which Garoffi hid his bulging 
pockets. 

From Rome to Turin the satchels and lunch 
baskets are alike in size and shape. A few 
years ago the popular satchel was goatskin, 
with the hair left on. In Rome all the lunch 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



83 



baskets were bright orange, while in Florence 
the fashionable color was that of a ripe tomato. 
Kindergartens are new in Italy, and there 
are very few public ones, so I am sure Enrico 
never saw anything so pretty as the Giardino 
d'Infanzia that I visited in Florence one April 
morning. Most of the curls and most of the 
big eyes were black, but, here and there, a 
yellow head and a pair of blue eyes made me 
think of home. 

One bright, cold January day I visited the 
largest public school in Rome. We were most 
courteously received by the director, who 
piloted us through all the grades to the manual 
traming workroom and to the sunny refectory, 
where every day a luncheon is served to the 
poorer children. 

We were ushered into one room which, I 
think, corresponded to Enrico's third grade. ' A 
lesson in geography was going on. A tall, thin 
boy, perhaps ten years old, whose arms were 
far too long for his sleeves, was reciting: "The- 
inhabitants - of - the - central - part - of - 
North - America - have - reddish - skins - 
high - cheek - bones - and - straight - black - 
hair." 

The teacher came forward and the director 

said: "Excuse me, Signor L , I have 

brought a lady and gentleman from America 
to visit the class." Forty pairs of big eyes 



84 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



were turned curiously upon us, but nobody 
smiled. We begged that the lesson might not 
be interrupted, and the long-armed boy, in 
some confusion, picked up his thread and went 
on: "high - cheek - bones - and - straight - 
black hair." 

As we went about, I thought that American 
pupils would be quick to complain of the cold 
in the classrooms and corridors ; but when we 
climbed to the vast, flat roof that makes the 
playground, I wished that the boys at home 
might see the wonder of the view on every 
side. Close at hand, the Colosseum ; in another 
direction, the Forum, the Capitol, and the 
Palatine Hill; far away, the Tiber and the 
great dome of St. Peter's. The director told 
us with pride that some of his boys would 
already be excellent guides to a stranger in 
Rome. I could well believe it ; for a boy might 
stand on that terrace in the sunshine and learn 
the history of three thousand years. 



THE LOVER OF TREES IN ITALY 

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 
(If our loves remain) 
In an English lane, 

Or look for me, old fellow of mine, 
(If I get my head from out the mouth 
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, 
And come again to the land of lands) — 
In a sea-side house to the farther South, 
Where the baked cicala dies of drouth. 
And one sharp tree — 'tis a cypress — stands, 
By the many hundred years red-rusted, 
Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, 
My sentinel to guard the sands 
To the water's edge. 

— Browning, De Gustibus. 

"I cannot understand," said a lover of Swit- 
zerland to me, "your content in Italy in the 
summer. I want depth of shade, and masses of 
green, and the coolness that comes from ever- 
green forests. Italy is beautiful, but it is so 
treeless." I listened, as one who has the taint 
of Italy in his blood listens to criticism of her, 
without resentment or jealousy, rather with tol- 
erance and pity for the critic. Yet I suggested 
that the southern side of the Alps is Italy, not 

85 



86 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

Switzerland ; and I recalled the oaks and walnuts 
in the valleys and ravines of Umbria, the beeches 
of a Vallombrosa and the hoary chestnuts of the 
Pistojese Apennines, for, even to one who does 
not know its greatest woods, Italy affords abun- 
dant green shadow. 

In the spring I made with my devotee of for- 
ests a Franciscan pilgrimage into the Casentino. 
The broad summit of Prato Magno was snow- 
covered, but the lower slopes of all the moun- 
tains were a glory of young oak foliage, too gol- 
den to be green, too green to be golden. When 
we stood among the towering beeches and hem- 
locks on the height of La Verna, my friend said 
penitently, "I shall never again think of Italy 
as treeless." 

None the less, next day, as we left the sharp 
firs of the Consuma Pass and its bleak winds be- 
hind us, and drove down toward the sunset 
glory of the Arno Valley, past fields of rose- 
colored vetch and wine-dark clover, of bright 
poppies and pale iris, into a world where acacias 
in full flower stood white among the cypresses, 
I reflected that it is not for its forest trees that 
one loves Italy. When the heart seeks broad 
oaks or cathedral firs, it is the North that calls, 
and if, in Italy, the feet of a Northerner stray 
into some unlooked-for selva oscura, he finds 
himself presently thinking of home. For, in 
spite of great exceptions, forests of pine, or fir, 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



87- 



or chestnut, the characteristic trees of Italy are 
detached, sharply outlined, impressive from lone- 
liness and contrast. In groves, in groups, in 
avenues, in files, in couples and singly, they cut 
the sky, and it is the general treelessness of the 
landscape that gives to the infrequent trees their 
peculiar beauty. They are so defined and in- 
dividual that one remembers the cypresses of a 
Tuscan city exactly as one remembers its cam- 
panili, and it would be as easy to forget the 
dome of St. Peter's as to forget the single palm 
tree of St. Bonaventura. I have even seen it 
from the Pincian Hill on a gray winter day, pale 
against a paler sky, yet distinct in outline as the 
convent itself. It looked lonely as a seventeenth- 
century ghost, keeping uneasy watch between the 
advance of archaeological excavation and of 
modern building. 

I shall always remember a May morning years 
ago, when, on the journey from Florence to Rome 
by way of Arezzo, I made discovery that the 
attenuated trees of Perugino are real, not fan- 
cied. It was my first lesson in the faithfulness 
of the Umbrian and Tuscan landscape painting. 
I soon came to know that, so long as the hillsides 
bear feathery alders and tufted poplars, and 
almonds pink with bloom in February, so long 
will the angels of Fra Giovanni and Benozzo 
Gozzoli flit before one's eyes. Outside the walls 
of Urbino grow two thin sentinels so alive with 



:88 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

the spirit of Perugino that one half expects to 
see Our Lady of Sorrows, purple-vested, stand- 
ing beside them in the fading light with St. 
Bernard at her feet. 

In Italy every tree has its peculiar significance 
and charm — fig trees, medlars, mulberries, with 
their garlands of vine, acacias, oaks, walnuts, 
chestnuts, firs — yet the most characteristic trees 
that stand along the way of the ordinary travel- 
ler seem to me to be the ilex, the olive, the cy- 
press, and the stone-pine. 

The ilexes present rather masses of shade than 
clearness of outline, but this is the impression 
from the outside. Beneath them, among them, 
as one becomes used to the dusk, one sees that 
not even an Italian gardener has been able to 
prune them of their individuality. 

On the Latian hill-sides they belong to the 
ancient world. They are symbols of Roman 
myth and of Roman rite, but as one sees them 
in villa and palace garden they are retainers of 
the ducal days. Indififerent and uncommunica- 
tive to the curious stranger, they, who grew old 
so long ago, whisper to themselves through the 
sunny noons of dead lovers whose secrets they 
have shared, of princely traitors whose crimes 
they have hidden, and, silent o* nights, they lis- 
ten for the festival music that used to sound 
from the bright windows. Though they are 
wrinkled and lichen-stained, though their hearts 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 89 

are eaten with decay, they cling to life with the 
tenacity of sage and subtle Monsignori. Their 
trunks may be built up with stones and cement, 
as are those of the giants of Castel Gandolfo; 
their mighty lateral spread may be propped by 
timbers as in the Boboli Gardens, yet they refuse 
to "die at the top." In spring the blackest of 
them all is covered with a faint glory of new 
green that changes it as a sudden thought of 
youth changes an old face. The nightingales 
have sung in its depths through three hundred 
Junes. They may find green shelter there for a 
hundred more — who knows. 

The ilex is reserved, patrician, but the olive 
is of the people. It loves broad slopes, where 
it may fraternize with mulberry and vine, and 
with the peasant as he ploughs and plants. It 
chatters to fig tree and medlar across the garden- 
wall. The sheep and the shepherds are its 
familiars, and the children who gather its fruit 
and trim its branches. From root to topmost 
bough, it is a creature of the sun. The swaying 
tracery that it casts over red soil or brown sod 
is tempered sunlight, not shadow. Even the 
hollow heart of an old olive shows, not decay, 
but a warm, silvery surface as if the rain and the 
sun had cleansed and polished it. 

The olive, like its peasant neighbor, works till 
the end. On an Umbrian hillside each broken 
shell through which the sky looks as through a 



90 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

ruined arch wears a fringe of fruit-bearing 
boughs, dancing and shining in the light as if 
the crown of old age were joy, not sorrow. 

I have heard the olive called dull and colorless. 
Profane lips have even called it dusty and 
dreary. The charm of it, like that of all soft 
color, is a matter of com.bination and contrast. 
The single tree, if one look at it from the 
ground, enhances every mass and every touch of 
vivid color about it; the red poppy at its foot, 
the green lizard on its trunk, the blue of the sky 
over it. Or, if the earth be dun and the sky 
gray, the olive gives delicate values, fine grada- 
tions of tone that please the eye as faint-heard 
harmony pleases the ear. 

If this be true of a solitary tree, it is truer 
of wide orchards in the general landscape. In 
the large, the effect of the olive is more translu- 
cent than opaque. Over the steep slopes of Tus- 
cany, where the trees are small, the color lies 
like a thin veil. In Umbria, and farther south, 
it falls from hill to plain in soft waves of a tone 
that is indescribable because it changes with 
every mood of the varying sky. 

The most marvellous color-effect of the olives 
that I remember was in the Alban hills, when, 
between the ranks of trees, the vineyards were 
vivid green with a hint of gold, and the grass 
had become actual emerald in the autumn rains. 
Though standing in the midst of this bright ver- 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



91 



dure, these Roman olives looked less silvery and 
more green than those of Tuscany, and I re- 
ceived the same impression from the orchards 
about Naples. 

I instinctively incline to think of olive and cy- 
press as local symbols, the olive Umbrian, the 
cypress Tuscan. Both trees are wide-scattered 
over Italy, but the olive is essential to the spirit 
of the Tiber Valley, and the cypress to that of 
the Arno. 

The eyes that find the olive dusty, have found 
the cypress mournful and stiff. They have 
found the early Tuscan and Umbrian painters 
also stiff and mournful, and it would be futile to 
argue in defence of either painters or trees. 
But lie on the sunny side of an old cypress 
through a mid-summer afternoon and look at it 
long, till you are alone in the world with it. 
Below, it is "ripe fruit o'ercrusted," and all 
a-flutter with singing birds, but the top soars 
away from you and pierces the sky as no other 
wingless thing can do. As your eye climbs the 
green spire, the blue seems to deepen and draw 
down till you are conscious not so much of in- 
finite distance as of infinite nearness. But, if 
you chance upon the same cypress standing 
against the sky at evening, how black and sombre 
it can be ! Withdrawn and austere, as becomes 
Dante's compatriot, it broods on tragedy. It 
will not even tell you if the song-birds that flut- 



^2 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

tered about it in the sunshine are hidden in its 
heart. 

Despite their simplicity of outline, the cypress- 
es are not monotonous nor changeless. I know 
an avenue of ancient trees in an Alban villa. 
Their vast trunks are cut and seamed and hol- 
lowed by the years. Their tops are blasted and 
broken. They have suffered and resisted 
through a thousand mountain storms, but, in the 
failing light of an autumn afternoon, they look 
weary and frail, as if the moment were near 
when their enduring mortality must yield to "the 
unimaginable touch of time." At the end of an- 
other road in the same villa there is a tall young 
cypress that sways with every breath. Slim and 
green as a martyr's palm, it is, like that, a thing 
of joy and victory. 

The cypresses are companionable and protect- 
ing. Two and two at tall gateways, in thin de- 
file along a climbing wall, in close ranks like 
battalions, they guard the homes of the living, 
and watch where the dead sleep. Their welcome 
greets the traveller on each return to "the land 
of lands," and their farewell follows him when 
his north-bound train pulls oUt into the dusk. 

Only less beautiful than the cypress, and per- 
haps equally beloved of Italy's lovers, is the 
umbrella-pine. It would be hard to say where 
it is most essential. On the Neapolitan coast, on 
the Roman Campagna, within the walls of Rome 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



95 



or on the environing mountains, crowning the 
cliffs of the Italian Riviera, or covering the plain 
between Ravenna and Rimini, it is "the joy of 
the whole earth." 

In spite of the ravages of time and fire and 
frost, the Pineta of Ravenna is lovely still. It 
takes only feeble imagining to figure it in the 
days when it skirted the sea. Now the sea is 
far away, and even the rice-swamps are being 
converted into firm wheat-bearing soil, yet deep 
among the pines all the modern life slips away. 
One walks with Dante 

per la pineta 
In sid lito di Ciassi, 
or one hears the sorrowful voice of Francesca 
yearning in the castle of the Malatesta that she 
might be 

posata dolcemcnte 
Su la marina di Ravenna 

As I write, the pines come back to me, picture 
after picture. I see the tall grove where it was 
good to lie on a September morning looking off 
over the Campagna, past Rome to the bright line 
of the sea, till, over-impressed by manifold beau- 
ty and suggestion, I turned back to find rest 
for eyes and spirit in the tossing boughs and 
"blue, rejoicing sky." 

I remember, on the path to Tusculum, a group 
of pines that always gave a softening grace to a 
certain bare, nameless, and dateless tomb. High- 



94 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



er up, a little forest, like a company of gay 
guests, stands singing on the scarcely traceable 
5ite of a Roman villa. But of all the Alban 
pines, I shall remember longest one, strong and 
solitary, that used to watch with me, evening 
after evening, when I climbed an upland meadow 
to see the ineffable colors of sunset visit the 
Sabine Mountains. 



THE ALTARPIECE 
A Sketch of Renaissance Italy 

In the choir of the great pilgrimage church of 
Our Lady the last scaffolding was down. Work- 
men, pupils, priests, friars, pilgrims, women and 
children, all the crowd of excited onlookers had 
departed, and the silence seemed echoing still 
with the tumult of the day. At the altar of the 
Virgin, far down the nave, the evening service 
was ended, and a priest moved about softly ex- 
tinguishing the tapers. 

In the choir the last sunlight fell slantwise 
from the windows of the dome, fell on the lavish 
gold of the new frescoes, a gold that seemed to 
defy the thickening shadows, and to efface the 
holy lamps. 

Up and down before, his masterpiece, the 
Master walked alone. All day he had worked 
and directed, listened to the chorus of applause, 
half heard the rare expression of disapproval 
that fell from some captious critic. Now the re- 
membered praise sang in his heart, but the harsh 
words were forgotten, for the Master's was a 
simple nature, and at this moment he was capable 
of but one emotion, sheer joy in the beauty of 
the work his hand had wrought. 

The light faded, but the Master still could see 



95 



^6 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

the golden-haired women and bright-bearded men 
whom he had painted in robes of blue and green, 
and tawny yellow, in a world of rocks and groves, 
where a bit of water gleamed blue-grey. Gentle 
faces looked out at him with eyes blue-grey like 
the water, and lips that half smiled, as if grate- 
ful to be alive there in the silence. Serenest of 
all these faces, yet most wistful and wondering, 
was that of Our Lady. 

With the growing darkness a thought intruded 
upon the Master's joy, disturbing it as wind and 
cloud might have disturbed the still back-ground 
of his fresco. This mood of glad expectation and 
unformulated dread had come to him many a 
time of late, but now its cause was imminent and 
unescapable, for to-morrow the Cardinal's com- 
missioners would come from Rome to inspect the 
new paintings. From Rome, which was caUing one 
by one the best provincial masters ! From Rome 
whose call meant wealth and fame and immortal- 
ity! Roman patrons had visited Tuscan, Um- 
brian, or Venetian cities, and great churches were 
left half finished, and in many a famous studio 
only pupils were to be found. The Master felt 
himself in the full prime of his power, and he 
longed to spend these his best years in a place 
that to every painter seemed the heart of the 
world. 

He realized suddenly that he was utterly weary, 
and that the church was quite dark. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 97 

"I must go home," he said aloud, "perhaps 
Andrea will have come." 

He turned reluctantly away, pressing through 
a door that led into the cloister where Brother 
Beato stood waiting patiently with torch and 
keys. 

"Good-night, Caro Maestro," he said, "one 
ought to be happy who is a great painter." 

"It is hard work, my brother," replied the 
Master, "but it is good work, God knows." 

Brother Beato quenched his torch, and by the 
soft light that defined the arches they knew that 
the moon was risen on the world without the 
cloister. 

"When the church is finished," said the Master, 
"I shall paint my last picture there, at the end 
of this loggia, paint it as a gift of friendship for 
the Brotherhood, and, especially for you, my 
brother. What shall it be? The coronation of 
Our Lady?" 

"When you paint there, Master," answered 
Brother Beato, "paint Our Lord upon the cross." 

At the garden gate a girl was waiting, little 
Teresita, with whose grandparents the Master 
had lived since he came a year ago, from a beau- 
tiful country like that one saw in his pictures. 

"You are late, Master, and you must be very 
tired," said Teresita, "but you must be proud, so 
proud and glad ! I heard his Highness speaking 
to my Lord Bishop, this morning, at the door of 



^8 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

the church, and he said They cannot match that, 
Your Excellency, no, not in Rome/ " 

The Master did not answer, but he walked less 
wearily. 

"Master," asked the girl timidly, "where is 
Andrea?" 

"He is in the city, carina mia, he has not fin- 
ished the portrait of the Duchess Leonora. I 
should like him to be here to-morrow when the 
visitors come from Rome." 

Late at night the Master stood in his doorway, 
whence he could see the dome of Our Lady of 
Salvation, vast and visionary in the August 
moonlight. Like an impatient boy he wished the 
night away ; for his dread had been but passing 
fatigue, whereas his expectation was temper- 
mental and persistent. 

In the early morning, while white mist covered 
the plain, and only the dome of Our Lady of 
Salvation floated in clear air, the commissioners 
arrived from Rome. When mass was ended, 
they stood in the full flood of the mid-day sun- 
shine to inspect the frescoes in the choir, and 
even the remembered glory of Roman churches 
and palaces could blind only the most critical 
among them to the charm of what they had come 
to see. For the most part, their comment was 
wholly praise, and under its glow, the Master's 
tongue was modestly loosed, and he spoke freely 
of his finished and his projected work. On the 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



99 



opposite faces of the choir arch were to be pic- 
tured the birth and the death of Our Lady, and, 
if he remained long enough, he would fill tran- 
septs and nave with altar pieces in her honor. 
He spoke proudly of his pupils, their attainments 
and their promise. 

"Look at that figure of a page, and see, that 
maiden's head, they are the work of my most 
gifted pupil. He will be a great man your Ex- 
cellencies; he is but twenty; I have taught him 
from a child." 

Was the lad to be seen? No, he was in the 
city, in the service of Duke Ridolfo; he was 
painting a portrait of her young Highness, the 
Duchess Leonora. 

"He must be looked to. Master, he does you 
credit," said the greatest of the visitors. 

That night there was no cloud upon the Mas- 
ter's expectation; he was dizzy with praise and 
joy. His future was assured, for my Lord the 
Archbishop had in parting spoken words capable 
of but one interpretation. If only Andrea would 
come, the boy of his love! The Master would 
not talk of his hopes to the other painters ; it was 
like boasting ; and the women ? Only little Tere- 
sita could understand. But Andrea, whose for- 
tune was bound with his own, for whom he 
would surely send as soon as he had received his 
first commission; the beautiful boy who should 
astonish the Roman painters and patrons, — why 



100 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

did not Andrea come that he might hear the 
parting words of the archbishop? 

"Addio, Maestro" he had said in his benign 
Roman voice, "until we meet in Rome." 

Next day Andrea came. The Master stood in 
his door, waiting for him, fairly wearied with 
suppressed excitement. In his imperative need 
for sympathy, he had confided to Teresita some- 
thing of his hope, and the task of answering her 
questions had shortened the long day. 

"Will you take Andrea, Master, when you go 
to Rome?" 

"We shall see. Little One, who knows? An- 
drea will be a great painter in Rome some day. 
It is for Andrea's sake that I am most glad." 

The Master smiled at Teresita, but the face 
that smiled back at him looked white and fright- 
ened. 

Then Andrea came, not lazily as he was wont, 
but impetuously, throwing himself upon the 
Master's neck and kissing him; not even seeing 
Teresita, whose eyes might have burned him. 

"Master, Master, I am bidden to Rome ! I am 
to work in the Vatican ! I must go at once, next 
week, in my Lord the Archbishop's suite. 

They came and found me painting; the por- 
trait is almost finished ; they say it is stupendous. 
'We must have you in Rome,' the archbishop 
said. O, there was a great scene : they all talked 
at once, and her Highness fainted in her chair; 



ITALIAN SKETCHES iqI 

she had been sitting very long, and no one no- 
ticed that she had turned white. 

"Think of it, Master ! They want young men, 
and new fashions. I am to be a great man. 
Teresita! Monna Giulietta! come and hear the 
news !" 

But they stood close behind the Master, and 
all three were trembling. 

When Andrea was gone to tell his fortune and 
be feted by his friends, and Monna Giulietta was 
gone to boast to Monna Elisebeta of the boy's 
great fame, the Master went away also, quietly, 
and only Teresita noticed that he took the road 
to the church. Two hours later he came home, 
and Teresita met him at the garden-gate, with 
troubled eyes : 

"When Andrea goes to Rome, shall you go 
also, Maestro?" 

"No, child," he answered gently, "I have my 
church to finish ; there are many histories yet to 
paint of the life of Our Lady." 

He stood a long time, silent as the after-sun- 
set mist that was rising between them and the 
church, but when he spoke it was as if he com- 
pleted an unbroken sentence : "and in the cloister 
I must paint for Brother Beato a picture of Our 
Lord upon the cross." 

* * * * 

On the facing panels of the choir arch the Mas- 
ter painted the birth and the death of the Virgin, 



102 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

giving to figures and to the scenes that joyous 
tenderness and tender pathos which he learned 
from no teacher and transmitted to no pupil. 
One more picture he made for the church, but 
its relation to his finished frescoes and to his un- 
finished series was hard to trace. It was an 
altarpiece in oils, painted in the obscurity of his 
make-shift studio ; no pupil worked upon it, and 
no eyes saw it save the dim ones of Monna Giu- 
lietta, who wondered vaguely, and the clear ones 
of Teresita, who understood. 

When on a bright morning of April the pic- 
ture was placed above the altar in a dark chapel 
of the nave, it excited a whirlwind of local com- 
ment, praise and questioning, but no one came 
from Rome because of it. The new altarpiece 
represented the baptism of Christ. Grouping 
and scene belonged to the familiar tradition; 
color and light to the Master's customary man- 
ner, but the thrill that ran through the crowd of 
observers, and grew into wondering ejaculations, 
was one of unmistakable recognition; for the 
beautiful, youthful, almost beardless face of 
Jesus was the face of Andrea, the Baptist's that 
of the Master himself. 



THE EIGHTH OF DECEMBER 

The Church of the Gesu was decked and 
thronged for the festival of the Immaculate Con- 
ception of Our Lady. It was sermon-time, and, 
with a great rattle of chairs, the congregation 
had turned toward the pulpit, where a famous 
Jesuit was mounting the steps. 

My seat was so placed that I could look up and 
down the church, from the end of the nave to 
the high altar. I could even peer into the left 
transept, where the silver-gilt figure of St. Ig- 
natius, uncovered for this festa-day, glimmered 
faintly through the shadows. As I looked, I was 
aware of a tall woman with a purple shawl over 
her head, who stood at the angle of transept and 
nave. Her back was toward the pulpit, and she 
gazed fixedly at the high altar, whose great 
crucifix had given place to a statue of the Ma- 
donna, pink-cheeked and golden-haired and robed 
in crisp blue and rose-color. 

The congregation was, like most Roman as- 
semblies, curiously cosmopolitan. There were 
tourists and ''converts" from Germany, England, 
and America, and seminarists from every nation 
under heaven. Among a group of students from 
the College of the Propaganda who were kneel- 
ing in front of me, was a negro youth with a 

103 



104 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



round black face, fantastically resembling that 
of the Third King in Albrecht Diirer's "Adora- 
tion". Close beside me sat a woman of the peo- 
ple, a little, bent grandmother with a red-aproned 
baby in her lap. She seemed not to hear the 
preacher, but she said her prayers devoutly, 
while the baby's sleepy fingers played with the 
beads and cross of her rosary. 

The preacher spoke eloquently and at length 
of the Church's age-long worship of the Blessed 
Virgin, the enthroned and holy Lady, Queen of 
Earth and Heaven. 

Far up in the baroque roof, little lights began 
to show unsteadily, as a long white wand, like a 
flame-tipped finger, felt patiently for candle after 
candle. Up and down the nave, in the transepts, 
in the apse, other silent, white fingers reached 
forth, wavered about in the dusk and moved on, 
leaving clusters of lights in great spaces of dark- 
ness. 

In the left transept, the figure of St. Ignatius 
gleamed brighter, and the gold rim of the lapis- 
lazuli globe above his head reflected the soft 
glow. As the swinging lamps surrounding the 
high altar were lowered, lighted, and slowly lifted 
into place, the pink and blue Madonna looked 
gayer than ever. 

"Blessed among women! Adored of all the 
church of God! Queen of Heaven!" exclaimed 
the preacher. Some one near me sighed heavily. 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



105 



I turned and saw behind my chair the tall woman 
in the purple shawl. Her great eyes looked sad, 
or puzzled, and I thought that she swayed, as if 
from weariness. "Will you take my chair, 
Madam?" I asked: "I am going out." She 
did not hear me, but glided swiftly down the 
nave, and I followed her, surprised that we 
moved so easily through the crowd. 

As we reached the door, the preacher ceased, 
and the vast congregation rose suddenly, and 
cried: ''Evviva Maria! Madre di Dio! Regina 
del Cielor 

The woman paused with her hand on the 
leather curtain and looked back. Her eyes were 
frightened and her mouth quivered. I raised the 
curtain, and we passed under it, into the twilight. 
I did not know why I followed her, nor whither. 
Through many dark streets we reached the river, 
and climbed narrow winding ways beyond, un- 
til at the top of a steep, unpaved road, the woman 
paused at a small gateway in a high, stuccoed 
wall. The gate stood ajar. She pushed it open 
and entered, I following as closely as I dared. 

Darkness had fallen, but I could discern a 
garden set with olives and cypresses. The gar- 
den was like a hundred others, yet, as I looked 
up through the olive branches, the sky and stars 
seemed strange. 

The woman disappeared in the dense shadow 
of a cypress path, and I pursued blindly, listening 



I06 ITALIAN SKETCHES 

in vain for the sound of her feet upon the gravel. 

The path opened at length into a bit of lawn, 
and there I saw her, seated on a stone bench be- 
side a silent fountain. Her face was buried in 
her lap, and she drew long, broken breaths, as 
if in pain. A warm south wind, sweet with the 
breath of December roses, drifted across the 
open, and whispered in the cypress trees. 

As I watched, a man came out from the farther 
shadow, and stood before the woman's knees. 
He laid his hand upon the bowed head, and his 
voice was like the voice of the south wind. "I 
would that I might comfort thee, my mother." 
And the woman answered piteously : "Yea, son, 
thou art my comfort, for thou art truly as a son 
to me; but the years grow long, and I am old. 
Thou sayest that he will come again in glory, 
but my heart cries out that he might come, once 
more, a child into these empty arms. Ay, eveni 
may God forgive me ! I would put by the hope 
of his returning, if I might hold his beloved head 
upon my knees, and close his dead eyes softly 
with my lips. The old priest spoke truly : *The 
sword shall pierce through thine own soul also,' 
for she who was most blessed among women, is 
she whom God hath most afflicted." 

"Nay, mother," said the man, but I heard no 
more, for his voice changed into the voice of a 
great organ, and a thousand lights trembled be- 
fore my eyes. I saw again the gorgeous church 



ITALIAN SKETCHES 



107 



of the Gesu. The gay Madonna smiled down 
from the high altar. About her rose an arch of 
swinging lights. Above her head, pricked out in 
yellow gas-jets, blazed the words: Salve Maria 
Regina. The mass-bell tinkled, and the priest 
lifted the host before the kneeling multitude. 
The man who looked like the Third King bowed 
his dark face to the ground. The poor grand- 
mother knelt upon the pavement, striving to teach 
the sleepy baby to kneel upon her chair. She 
folded his limp little hands together, and I heard 
her whisper : '' 'Maria, Madre di Dio e Madre di 
misericordia, pregate per noif " I looked across 
the left transept. The silver-gilt figure of St. 
Ignatius was all aglow, but the tall woman in the 
purple shawl was nowhere to be seen. 



WORKS BY SOPHIE JEWETT 

Poems : Memorial Edition. Thomas Y. Crowell 
and Company. 

God's Troubadour : The Story of St. Francis of 
Assisi. Thomas Y. Crowell and Company. 

The Pearl : A Middle English Poem. A mod- 
ern version in the metre of the original. 
Thomas Y. Crowell and Company. 

The Heart of a Boy : A translation of "Cuore" 
by Edmondo de Amicis. Rand, McNally 
and Company. 

Folk Ballads of Southern Europe: Trans- 
lated into English Verse. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 



